The Ones Who Ran
by Colubrina
Summary: When the impossible happens and the bad guys win, would-be-heroes are thrown together with terrified partners in a plan none of them really want. "I know I'm part of what must be the worst day of your life," he said. "I know I'm the enemy. But, I swear, I'm not going to hurt you." Theo/Luna. Draco/Hermione. Blaise/Ginny. COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

Harry Potter was dead. That was the main thing. Really, truly, not faking it dead. When people realized that a hush fell over the hall and most people just stopped fighting. It was as if the impossible had happened.

The impossible had happened.

The bad guys had won.

Someone started to sob in the silence and Voldemort's icy voice filled the room. "Would someone be so kind as to fetch the Slytherin children you've _locked in the dungeon_ and bring them to me."

A Death Eater hurried off; others casually slaughtered the few adults standing and broke the remaining students into groups.

"You think I'm evil," Voldemort said, looking over the shaking and crying teenagers. "And yet it was your side who decided to make this final battle a children's crusade." He shook his head and the snake visage fell away and revealed a handsome, if tired looking, dark-haired man. Ginny Weasley, perhaps the only person left living on her side who recognized him, gasped before shoving her hands over her mouth and burying her face in the shoulder of the brother standing next to her. Voldemort raised an eyebrow at her reaction and one side of his mouth quirked upward.

The wary and angry group of students that joined the hall located their parents and older siblings, reassured themselves that the ones they loved were alive, before even acknowledging the losing side. Pansy Parkinson spit at them; Blaise Zabini folded his arms and glared. Even the normally impenetrable Theodore Nott huffed out a snort of derision as he eyed the sobbing clusters; he and Draco Malfoy caught one another's eyes and the boys nodded at each other, quick, sharp nods that reaffirmed their long time friendship. They'd won. Well, who would have expected that?

Voldemort, who had been conferring with one of his robed followers, cleared his throat when the final missing Slytherin student filed into the hall. The sound seemed to make everyone shudder. "I do believe," the man said, "a new day is at hand. A new world order, so to speak. I have no interest in murdering you all out of hand. Every magical child is precious, even - " and here he flicked a faintly disgusted glance at Hermione Granger – "the ones from inferior lineages."

She bristled under his look and he smiled at her, a cool look of disdain in the face of her posturing.

"However, we do have a population to replenish and a sufficient number of you are of age to start that. We've brought in a Ministry official to perform some quick marriage ceremonies and each of my young Slytherin brethren will be asked to select a partner from some other house. Think of it as an inter-house unity project." He smiled, a look that was perhaps even more horrifying for the look of warm sincerity it projected. If the man giving you that smile weren't standing in a hall surrounded by the bodies of people he'd killed, if he weren't calmly planning on orchestrating dozens of forced marriages between his followers and terrified school girls, you'd have trusted him absolutely simply because of that smile.

The Ministry official in question, the one who would be performing these marriages, stood at one end of the hall, looking terrified himself and favoring his right arm somewhat.

"You can't do this," some girl cried out and Voldemort turned to look at her.

"Who do you think will stop me?"

The obvious answer was no one. He'd had the Ministry in his hand for longer than anyone knew and, with the death of the rest of the Order, there was no one left to oppose him. Now that he no longer even looked like a monster ordinary people would probably shrug, be glad the war was over, and not especially care what oppression crept into their lives until it was too late. People would trust the handsome man with the engaging smile and perfected body language because, really, who would believe he had orchestrated a terror campaign, that he had killed people and split his soul to guarantee eternal life? No one. No one who was left, anyway.

He waved the young men among his followers forward. Some, like Draco, like Theo, were already bare faced. Others, like Marcus Flint, stripped off Death Eater masks with blood-stained hands. "Gentlemen," Voldemort said, "if you would be so kind as to select a bride from the women standing before you and proceed to be married in an orderly fashion I would appreciate it. Your elders and I have much to do to set the world right –" someone very brave from among the gathered remains of the losing side made a derisive sound at that – "and I'm sure you'd all like to take your new brides home and get acquainted. A month for the honeymoon seems traditional; I'll summon you all to meet at the end of that time."

Draco Malfoy exchanged a glance with his mother and, at her subtle nod, strode forward and grabbed Hermione Granger by the arm. She stiffened under his touch and he hauled her off to the official at the side of the hall while Voldemort laughed. Theodore Nott didn't even bother checking with his father before he gestured with a sharp wave of his hand at Luna Lovegood, who tipped her head to the side as if considering whether she was going to obey before picking her way through the hall with an apparently absent-minded walk that nevertheless led her to his side as he stalked towards the edge of the room without taking her near either Voldemort or any of the bodies littering the floor.

"Are the vows magically binding," Theo asked the official as Draco led the clearly livid Granger from the hall, presumably to apparate her to the Manor.

"Y...yes," the man stammered.

"Figures," Theo muttered. "What are they?"

"Just the standard ones," the man said, clutching at some kind of paperwork.

"Spell it out for me," Theo said, his eyes narrowing. "I've never actually gotten married before and thus I'm not totally clear what 'the standard ones' are."

"Uh… honor and cherish for both of you, obedience and fidelity for the bride."

Theo snorted at that. "Axe the obedience bit and include fidelity for us both, please."

"I c… can't do that," the man said, looking over Theo's shoulder at Voldemort.

Theo drew his wand and pressed it into the man's side as Luna looked on with a curious expression in her bright eyes. "I'm the man standing right in front of you with a wand and I suggest you marry me to my blushing bride _right now_ before I inform the Dark Lord that you have declined to be accommodating."

With an obvious gulp the man did as he was asked and, as quickly as he could, pronounced the pair bound in matrimony; Theo turned to the woman and said, with exquisitely formal courtesy, "Would you like to return to your room to fetch anything or shall I simply have the Nott elves transport your belongings to your new home?"

"The elves would be fine," Luna said. "If they don't mind."

"They will be delighted to be of assistance," he assured her and offered her his arm as if he planned to lead her into a ballroom rather than out of the room where any reasonable person might have said hope and light had ended and into a life bound to a man who, if not a Death Eater now, was surely slated to become one at the end of this 'honeymoon.'

She didn't start to shake until they were out of the room and onto the steps. "Hold it together," he hissed. "We'll be in the privacy of home soon enough."

"Home," she said in a wan voice and all her composure began to crumble until he grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her.

"Don't go into shock," he growled into her ear. "I am doing the very best I can to protect you right now, but if you start to have hysterics or something we might attract the attention of one of the really crazy ones which, I absolutely assure you, we do not want so _hold it together_."

She nodded and braced her shoulders back and he smiled. "There's my girl," he said. "Do you have your wand?" When she nodded he said, "I'm going to side-along apparate you. Once we're inside the wards of Nott Manor you'll be safe, do you understand me? Hold on and stay calm so I don't splinch you."

She nodded again and he pulled her into him as tightly as he could and the world fell away until they were on the edge of his own home.

The unpleasant sensation of apparation seemed to have acted much as a slap would and she'd shaken herself back into the poise he'd often thought of as uncanny. My bride, he thought, the daft Ravenclaw. Draco better be bloody right about this because I'm well and truly stuck with her forever.

. . . . . . . . . .

The elves gushed over their new mistress with predictable fervor and Theo had to cut them off before the girl fell over from exhaustion; she'd had what might be termed an unpleasant day. Sharp directions to go get her things and send some tea and a light meal up to his suite gave the annoying creatures something to do and they scattered and he was finally able to get her into his heavily warded personal space.

She hovered a bit once they were inside the door, clearly not sure what she should do and he looked at her – really looked at her – for the first time since he'd picked her as his bride. She was filthy, with several cuts and quite a bit more blood on her skin and clothing that probably wasn't hers.

"You need a shower," he said, studying her and running through the checklist of basic healing spells he knew, "and a change of clothes."

"That would be nice," she said. Then, "Why are you being so nice?"

He'd already turned away to rummage through a drawer and see if he could find something she could wear; he was fairly sure the elves, dedicated as they were, might have a hard time getting in and out of Hogwarts this particular day. He straightened and looked back at her.

"I suspect," she said, "not all the Death Eaters are finding their brides clean clothes and offering them a chance to bathe before moving on to the ravishing portion of the wedding."

"I'm not a Death Eater," he said, his voice clipped, "and I think I'd like to skip the 'ravishing portion' if it's all the same to you. We will have to share the bed because this is the only bedroom I've got extra wards around, but the thing is large enough that I hope you'll feel comfortable sleeping in it with me."

"If I didn't," she asked, her voice oddly curious, "would you sleep on the floor?"

"Yes," he ground out, "But I'd sleep badly so if you can manage to tolerate - "

"No, it'll be fine," she said, cutting him off, and he exhaled and looked at her again. She was studying him now as if he were wholly unexpected and unknown to her.

Well, he supposed he was.

He pointed at a door across the room and said, "En suite through there. I'll find you something to wear and slip it inside the door."

"You still haven't answered," she said and he shook his head. Daft, daft, daft.

"Answered _what_?" he asked.

"Why you're being so nice. So considerate."

He turned away from her to hide his face as he answered, making a show of sorting through his things to find her a simple t-shirt and a pair of pajama bottoms. "I've had one goal in my life these past few years: stay in one piece. Now I have another: keep you alive and whole. And whether you believe it or not, I plan to do the very best I can to manage that. Do you think this will fit? I'm no good at transfiguring clothing." He turned and handed her some things and she took them from him.

"Thank you," she said and he closed his eyes for a long moment, bracing himself against the gratitude that covered far more than some borrowed clothing, and when he opened them she was gone and he could hear the water start to run.

He wondered if she'd noticed he hadn't actually answered her question.

She asked another when she emerged, looking far too good in his clothes as she stood in the doorway to the bath, running a comb through her wet hair. "Why did you add the fidelity clause to your vow?"

That made him cringe but he answered her honestly. "So I can't be forced to rape anyone on some Death Eater's orders."

He expected her to turn away from him at that, to look at him with the loathing any sane person had for a man who knew what happened at Death Eater functions, but instead she looked thoughtful again. "Clever," she said. "Why leave out the obedience part?"

"You think I want some woman magically compelled to do what I tell her?" He couldn't keep the disgust off his face at that notion, that utterly repugnant notion.

The elves popped in at that moment, bustling with a table that they set up in front of the small fireplace, lighting the fire, laying out tea and several kinds of cakes and some fruit and cheese. Before they could start their babbling submission act, Theo thanked them and ordered them away, though their sycophantic gurglings about how kind he was could still be heard several moments after they were gone.

He sighed and stood and, moving to the table and pulling a chair out, said, "Can I interest you in some food? I'm a little worried you might start to slip back into shock if you don't have something. Then maybe you'll let me heal those cuts?"

Getting her to eat proved to be trickier than he'd expected; despite how calm she seemed he realized she was, perhaps, only one more shock away from simply shutting down when she sat at the table and held a bunch of grapes in one hand but made no effort to eat; she just stared at them. He took a pear and cut out a slice and held it towards her. "Eat," he said. "You'll do yourself no favors if you don't."

"A threat?" she asked quietly before leaning forward to let him hand feed her the fruit.

He shook his head. "An assessment." He held out another slice of pear and she took that one too, her eyes on him now. Step by step, slice by slice, he coaxed her into eating first some fruit, then some cheese. At last she shook her head when he held out a bite and instead picked up a small biscuit and began to nibble on it, sipping from the tea he poured her.

"You aren't what I expected," she said, still calm enough to worry him. She should be having some kind of breakdown; she'd almost had one on the steps outside the school but since then she'd been almost unnaturally still for a woman who'd witnessed death and found herself married to the son of one of the killers. "I think you were on the wrong side."

"I was on the winning side," he corrected her, taking time now to eat his own food. "And a good thing for you that I was or you'd probably be having a much less pleasant evening."

"You should have been on – "

"Your lot wouldn't have had me," he cut her off, adding by way of bitter explanation, "Slytherin."

She nodded at that and sipped at her tea and he watched her as he ate the rest of the fruit and cheese in silence before pushing back and leaving to take a shower of his own. He wanted to wash this whole day away, their victory, his marriage, this girl who'd become his bloody responsibility and, if none of that were possible, if he knew he'd emerge into the same world with nothing changed except being cleaner and wetter, well, he still wanted to stand under the water and pretend, for just a moment, that that worthless, fucking Harry Potter had done what he was supposed to and killed the bastard. He wanted to pretend their back-up plans had been a waste of time.

He didn't want to think about the way people like Greg Goyle were likely spending the night, about the horrors their 'brides' were surely enduring.

Thinking about the way Granger had to be spitting mad but also confused as hell by this point was a lot more pleasant. He hoped Draco had had the sense to snatch her wand. He'd offered to flip for who had to take her but Draco had volunteered so quickly he'd nearly spit the whiskey he'd been drinking across the table. Subtle the man wasn't.

He wondered if Blaise had managed to rescue the Weasley girl and, if he had, whether he would actually stick around to help or just flee to the relative safety of the continent.

Fleeing sounded like good sense to him. Take this fragile, blonde girl on a shopping trip to Paris and then just never come home. If he'd been smart he would have picked some vapid trollop who would have been happy to clear out but he'd had to listen to Draco who, it turned out, had some hero complex brewing under all that brittle arrogance; he'd had to choose the Order member.

He'd listened, though, so he supposed he must have a similar complex.

Fools, both of them. All three of them, assuming Blaise stayed around. Being a hero got you killed. Look at Potter.

He found his own bride - his beautiful, noble heroine - tucked into bed, holding herself at the edge of the mattress and, looking at her, he wanted to cry.

It wouldn't help, of course.

Instead he got in the other side, careful not to touch her, not to make this any worse, and dimmed the lights in the room. He lay there, listening to her breathe, listening to her cry herself, until at last he said, "I know I'm part of what must be the worst day of your life. I know I'm the enemy. But, I swear, I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not going to let any of them hurt you. Luna, I'm so sorry this happened, so sorry we're here. So very, very sorry."

"I know," she whispered, and then she was turning towards him and he had his arms around her and she was sobbing against his chest and he was patting her, so very awkwardly. He hadn't expected this to happen at all, certainly hadn't expected her to turn to him for comfort, and he was murmuring into her hair how he'd keep her safe, how it would be okay, how brave she was.

She finally fell asleep there, tucked into him, a man she'd never so much as had a conversation with until today, and he worried as he contemplated the plans that had seemed much less frightening when he'd thought that surely Potter would do his thing, when he hadn't considered what it would mean to be married to a girl he'd vowed to honor and meant to protect, a girl who might have been safer ground into the dirt by an abusive Death Eater than at his side.

. . . . . . . . . .

_**A/N - **__**My lovely beta has been cheerleading this since, I think, January, and I finally decided to start publishing it. It has the minor problem that, though I am 16 chapters into it, I'm not wholly sure where it goes. Perhaps releasing it to the wild will give me ideas.**_

_**Shealone, that aforementioned lovely beta, has started her own Theo story, because everyone must love Theo. It's called 'Tying the Nott' and I wholly recommend it. It's linked out of my favorites on the off chance the search function annoys you.**_


	2. Chapter 2

Draco arrived early the next morning, pounding on the door, still hauling Hermione Granger around with his hand on her upper arm. She looked like she couldn't quite decide if she wanted to kill her captor or lecture him.

Theo had to suppress a laugh at that look. Better Draco than him. He'd take his peculiar beauty over this termagant any day.

"Draco," he nodded to his friend and the man rolled his eyes. He looked tired; it had apparently been a long night. "You look well, Granger," Theo added, gesturing towards the inside of the manor. "I've had the elves set up breakfast on the terrace and Luna is already out there."

"Looks can be deceiving," the woman snapped and Theo eyed Draco.

"Isn't marriage great?" the man said. "The bliss people speak of barely covers it. Do you have coffee?"

"Of course," and Theo followed the man as he stalked back towards their breakfast, leaving his new wife to trail in his wake. Theo offered her his arm but she just glared at him and set out after the man.

Theo could feel his head already begin to pound.

"Can we move in here?" Draco asked as soon as he'd swallowed his first gulp of coffee. "That fucking bastard is still at the Manor and Granger here seemed to have a panic attack when we walked in the door."

'Tortured," the woman said, ripping a croissant into two pieces. "In your house. And you wonder why I might find it a _trifle_ uncomfortable to be there?"

"You started to shake uncontrollably and then I had to physically carry you to my room after you froze. That's more than a 'trifle' uncomfortable." Draco peeled an orange with unnecessary vigor as he added, "If I hadn't been afraid the Dark Lord might have begun to doubt the depths of my ardent and lustful passion, I would have left you in the foyer all night."

"Bastard."

"Cunt."

"Well," Theo said. "I see you two are having a lovely start to your life together and, yes, you are more than welcome to move in here though my suite is the only one with the extra warding."

Draco shrugged. "Your bloody lawn would be preferable to a house with Voldemort in it." He turned to Hermione and said, voice sickly sweet, "Assuming that's okay with you, my dove."

She ignored him and turned to Luna. "Are you okay?"

"It would be nice to have you here," she replied.

"Has he been…?" Hermione looked at Theo with loathing and suspicion in her eyes.

"Oh yes," Luna said. "He vowed fidelity to me," she added.

"Lucky you," said Hermione.

"I think so," Luna said. Theo was relieved to see she seemed to be eating this morning. She'd worked her way through a plate of pastries and fruit and was drinking tea without shaking. She'd woken up, still nestled against him, and when he'd opened his eyes she'd been staring at him, assessing him. He wasn't sure what conclusion she'd come to. He'd come to the unfortunate one that she had a beautiful mouth and that sleeping with a woman in your arms all night didn't result in chaste thoughts.

He'd told himself he'd gotten out of bed and into the shower before she'd noticed his morning erection.

"So," Draco took another swallow of coffee, "do we fight or get out?"

Hermione lowered the half of the croissant she'd been raising to her mouth and said, her voice level, "I beg your pardon?"

"Oh, now you bring on the manners," Draco muttered before leaning back and raking his eyes over the witch as insolently as he could. "You surely didn't think I married you for your looks, Granger, or your winning personality?"

"It has occurred to me you might have simply lost your mind," she snapped.

"I am starting to think you might be right," he retorted and, as the two of them glared at one another, Theo glanced at Luna, wanting to know how she'd taken Draco's artless revelation. She still had on his t-shirt and her hair was tangled; she looked like a woman who'd just rolled out of bed and he thought she was utterly beautiful.

"You don't have to fight," he said quietly to her, ignoring the squabbling pair at the table. "I have plenty of money hidden. I can tuck you away in a cottage on the continent where you'll be safe."

She slipped her hand into his and he felt a quick shock run through him with tingles that reached from where her fingers grasped him down to his toes. "Not even twenty-four hours into our marriage and you're already trying to set me aside?" she asked and he was about to protest that that wasn't it at all when he realized she was smiling at him and he squeezed her hand.

"Well," he said, smiling back, "we do seem to lack the kind of fire they have." He tipped his head towards Draco and Hermione who appeared to be on the verge of throwing their cups at one another.

"You're an arrogant, condescending Death Eater," Hermione was hissing. "Why would I even trust you to do so much as sweeten my tea much less guard my back?"

"You're a self-righteous harpy with bad hair," he snarled back, "and, in case it had escaped your notice, the rest of the 'good guys' are dead and you're stuck with me."

"It's so _cute_ that you think you qualify as a 'good guy'." She picked up her spoon and started to stir her tea so vigorously the liquid splashed out of her cup and onto the tablecloth. "How's that brand on your arm, slave boy? And I wouldn't be stuck with you, as you so aptly termed it, if you hadn't hauled me off to that farce of a wedding ceremony against my wishes."

"Because you'd have preferred someone like Marcus Flint? Do you want to me to tell you _exactly_ what he likes to do to women?" Draco said and shoved an orange segment into his mouth and, after he swallowed it, added. "At least with me you know I'm not interested in watching you suffer and that hell will bloody well freeze over before I fuck you. I might yell at you, you horrible bitch, but you can rest assured that I won't actually get off on hurting you. Trust me, it gets _much_ worse than me."

Hermione recoiled as if she had been slapped. Theo found himself bemused that it apparently hadn't occurred to her until that moment that marriage to her childhood nemesis probably counted as a good outcome when one considered the possible alternatives.

"Thank goodness," Luna said to Theo, still placid even in the face of the screaming. "That kind of fire looks exhausting."

"Do you trust him?" Hermione turned to Luna and waved her hand at Theo. He tensed.

"Yes," Luna said simply.

"Why?" Hermione demanded.

"Because I chose to," Luna said and Theo felt his breath catch.

"Trust doesn't work that way," Hermione said. "I can't just trust because I wake up and decide to."

"It works that way for me." Luna looked at Theo. "Are there any more of those pears you fed me last night?"

He raised her hand to his mouth and brushed his lips across her fingers. "I'll check," he said and rose from the table. "Try not to kill each other while I'm away," he said to Draco and Hermione and Luna smothered a laugh.

While rifling through the kitchen and putting together a basket with several of the pears along with some of the biscuits he'd seen Luna eat the night before, Theo thought about how he should just take her and get out; Draco and Hermione would never be able to work together and even if they could the idea that the four of them – six if Blaise showed up – could manage to succeed where an entire secret society had failed was insane.

The good guys had lost and they had one month to figure it out.

Draco and Hermione had settled into a sullen silence and were both eating breakfast while rather pointedly ignoring one another when he returned. Luna smiled to see him and he was stuck again by how very pretty she was, by how much he liked seeing her in his shirt. He handed her the basket and was rewarded by the pleasure on her face when she pulled out first a pear and then the biscuits.

"Who else is there," she asked after taking a bite from the pear and licking the dripping juice from her fingers. "Or is it just the four of us?"

"Blaise," Draco said. "Though I wouldn't be surprised if he just takes off for the continent."

"Which is an idea we should all consider," Theo said.

"Who was Blaise supposed to choose as a bride?" Luna asked.

"And how did you know about this vile little plan anyway?" Hermione muttered.

"One of the great delights - and there weren't many, I admit - about living with the arrogant embodiment of evil was how sloppy he was about sharing his plans," Draco said, peeling another orange. "He was quite delighted with this one. Passing out teenage girls as war booty tickled his fancy."

"It would," Hermione said, slumping a bit.

"Ginny," Theo said, answering Luna's question. "Blaise was supposed to rescue Ginny Weasley."

Hermione put her hands over her mouth as though she were trying to physically hold back sobs.

"Makes sense," Luna said, continuing to lick pear juice off her hands. "You tried to get at many Order resources as possible."

"Exactly," Draco said. "See, mate, I told you she wasn't totally daft."

Theo murmured, "I've figured that out," as he watched Luna eat her pear. Her thorough enjoyment of the fruit was one of the most enticing things he'd ever seen. He tried to tell himself that the girl – the woman – was a victim trapped in his home, someone he needed to treat gently, but all he could do was stare at her mouth until Draco coughed and he looked back at the man.

"So, I can install my loving bride and myself in a guest room?"

"Why do we have to share a room?" the woman demanded and Theo sighed.

"Because Draco and I will now spend all day exhausting ourselves adding extra protections to whatever room you end up in so, on the off, horrible chance some of our colleagues come calling, you can wall yourself in and avoid them and it would be incredibly selfish of you to ask us to do that twice."

"You will have to do it twice." Blaise leaned on the doorway to the terrace, Ginny Weasley flinging herself forward from his side to hug Hermione. "Unless, of course, you object to us moving in as well."

Theo rose and he and Blaise exchanged quick handshakes. "Good to see you, mate," Theo said. "Was getting worried."

Blaise raised his brows. "The wife and I were enjoying a bit of a lie in after a late night."

Theo turned to look at Ginny and realized, upon close examination, that even under the almost hysterical relief she and Hermione were sharing, she had the sated look of a woman who'd spent the night doing something other than sobbing or arguing. "Really?" he asked Blaise and the man smiled.

"Look at her? Why wouldn't I?"

"I don't know," Theo muttered. "Taking advantage and all that."

"If anyone was taken advantage of it was me." He moved to a chair and started to pile fruit and scones onto a plate. "I'm starved. Marriage makes a man hungry."

Ginny pulled a chair up next to Hermione and the two were rapidly conferring about who else might have made it until Draco cut them off. "Don't waste your energy on hope. If we thought any other male in our House was trustworthy, he'd be here. They aren't all sadistic bastards, but if you don't think about your friends or what's happening to them you'll be happiest. Sanest. You were on the losing side of the war, Granger, and Voldemort just passed you and yours out like trinkets. Baby-making trinkets."

She raised a hand to slap him and he grabbed her wrist and cruelly twisted her arm away. "I won't let you hit me again, so don't bother trying. Like it or not, Granger, I'm treating you as an equal, not like some fragile pureblood who needs me to shelter her from every storm."

"I hate you," she hissed, tears in her eyes and Theo watched the subtle flinch that Draco quickly hid.

"I can make you hate me more," he promised as the rest of the table fell silent and stared at them. "Do you want me to illustrate how fucking _lucky_ you are?" He stood up, hauling her to her feet as well and knocking over her chair in the process. "Do you want me to demonstrate how most of your friends probably spent last night?" He shoved her against the wall and pressed his body up against hers, pinning her wrists above her head with one hand while he slid the other lewdly over her curves before shoving it into her waistband. She froze and closed her eyes, jaw starting to tremble.

"Draco," Theo said, warning in his tone.

"I get you don't like me," the blond man was saying, barely repressed rage in his voice. "Trust me, after an entire night being abused by you, if I'd had any doubt on that matter you'd have cleared it up. I don't especially like you either, princess. But I married you to bring you into what passes for an insurgent group and I would _really appreciate it_ if you would stop acting like I was the enemy when, right now, I am the best fucking thing that has ever happened to you."

He shoved her harder into the wall and then stepped back, breathing hard. "Now," he said, turning back to the table, the shaking Hermione behind her, her eyes still closed. "I think we should talk about whether we want to fight that bastard or just get the fuck out."

. . . . . . . . . .

_**A/N – Thank you all for your lovely feedback and questions. Yes, I intend to post all of it. No, I don't have a posting schedule. Most of the things people have asked to see, such as the first night from the perspective of the other two women, are definitely there, as are answers about what happens to the non-Slytherin male characters and the Slytherin female characters. My wonderful beta, Shealone, and I were kicking ideas back and forth today and I think I know the story arc now. **_

_**I'm sorry that I'm nor responding to reviews today; I've been head down writing Green Girl (which is about 2K words from being totally done), this, and Muddy Princess (plus this Tomione crack fic but that's just silliness.) **_

_**I do love your comments; they are little drops of happiness falling onto me from the internet.**_


	3. Chapter 3

They didn't end up having any kind of fruitful discussion about whether it was even feasible to battle the Dark Lord. Instead, after flashing a furious look at Draco, Ginny darted over to Hermione and, grabbing her hand, tugged her down into the garden. They sat there, still in sight, while Hermione sobbed and Ginny stoked her hair and cast murderous glances up at Draco on the terrace. At some point Ginny started to shake herself and Theo watched with concern as she began to dry heave into the flower bed.

"Not your best attempt at seduction ever," Blaise observed, pulling a pear out of Luna's basket and starting to cut it into slices.

"I wasn't trying to seduce her, I was trying... oh, fuck it." Draco threw himself back into his seat. "I need a drink and it's not even noon."

"I agree with Blaise," Luna said. "You have to go slower."

Draco's baleful look would have intimidated most people but Luna just smiled at him and nibbled on her biscuit.

"You'll also need to deal with your Mark," she added and he rubbed at his sleeve where it covered the brand. The Mark was something that they'd all tried not to think about when they concocted this mad scheme; that he could be summoned, hurt, tracked: none of that boded well for either his participation in any rebellion or an escape.

"It's not something that _can_ be dealt with," he muttered. "I'm bound forever."

Luna, however, was shaking her head. "It's just a summoning spell with a nasty pain bit added in. It shouldn't be that hard to break. Hermione's quite good at research. If you asked her nicely she might figure it out for you." She took another bite of her biscuit before adding, "You'll probably have to apologize first, though."

"I think you're fooling yourself," Theo said, his voice gentle. "Dumbledore never was able to protect Professor Snape from his Mark – "

Luna cut him off. "Well, he didn't want to, did he? It suited him to have a spy. It shouldn't suit us to let Draco suffer that way even if he isn't being very nice right now."

Draco and Theo exchanged startled glances. They had never considered that Dumbledore might have kept Snape chained and suffering on purpose; that was brutally cruel for anyone, much less a man who was supposed to have been the leader of the light side. The possibility that Draco could be freed was tantalizing and, as he considered what that would mean not just for their mad ideas but for his friend, Theo slowly said "I'd start eating crow if I were you. If she can free you from that thing…"

"You should be kinder anyway," Luna said, starting to gather leftover pastries and some fruit into the basket Theo had used to bring her the pears.

Draco glared at her; he didn't appreciate being offered advice on how to handle his miserable wife. "You try being kind to someone who much of the last night trying to throw things at your head."

She shrugged. "Everyone handles fear differently." She stood up and took the basket down to Ginny and Hermione as all three men stared after her.

"Hard to remember they all have to be scared half to death," Blaise admitted, looking down at his plate. "She probably assumed you'd spend the whole night – ." He stopped, thinking about what had been a reasonable concern.

"Well, I didn't," Draco snapped. "And I had no intentions of… I'm not that much of an arsehole."

"Yeah?" Blaise said, eyebrows raised. "The women who just watched you manhandle her up against the wall might have a different view of that."

Theo slumped in his seat. "I agree with you about needing a drink. We were utterly daft to think this would work. We've bungled it already and we haven't even managed to ask the three of them if they're interested."

"Of course they'll be interested," Draco said, dismissing that concern with narrowed eyes. "What's the alternative? A lifetime of forced motherhood? Even if we aren't holding them down and impregnating them this second, if we stay and they aren't obviously making new little Death Eaters for that prick pretty soon they'll be in danger and so will we."

"You planning on threatening to hand her over if she doesn't agree to help you? Of reminding her what she's been reduced to by the current regime?" Theo asked without looking up. "Really?"

"Of course not," Draco sounded appalled. Theo remembered how quickly the man had offered to take on Granger and hid his smile.

"I'm sure she finds it very reassuring to think of how much better it is being married to you than being tossed into a pit of Death Eaters to be raped to death," Blaise said, rolling his eyes. "Could you _be_ any worse at this?"

Draco glared across the terrace towards the three women who were picking at the picnic breakfast Luna had brought them. His thoughts, beyond his evident irritation, were wholly hidden. He was just a young, angry man. "I don't know how to handle her," he finally admitted. "It didn't occur to me she'd be so stupid as to think I planned to… hurt her." He swallowed hard at the last bit. "Once I got her into my wing she just started in on me. Death Eater scum. Bet you're happy now. Things like that. And then she started throwing things at me. I was yelling at her to cut it out, was she crazy. I never got a chance to tell her I wasn't… that I didn't mean to…"

"You are such an idiot," Blaise said. "Though, I admit maybe the decision to not tell them we had a plan, or at least a kind of possibility of a plan, until we were all together wasn't such a good one."

"You think?" Draco muttered. He sighed and ran a hand through his head and said again, "I didn't think she'd be so stupid as to assume that's what I meant to do."

"Really?" Theo asked. "Seven years of hostility, a sadistic murderer laughs that she's trapped with you, and it didn't occur to you until she started throwing things that she might be fucking terrified?" He pulled out a bottle and laced his coffee and passed the alcohol across the table to Blaise, who topped off his own drink before, after a brief moment of hesitation, handing the bottle to Draco. "Luna didn't even have a reason to be afraid of me other than I was some stranger she'd just been tied to and she almost had a breakdown on the steps. She _knew_ what was happening to her friends, asked me why it wasn't happening to her."

Blaise blanched at that. "Weasley was similarly … tense… when we got to my mother's place," he admitted. "She only stopped shaking when I handed her her wand and a glass of scotch and suggested we play chess. Apparently chess was code for 'not rape' in her head."

"You appear to have gotten her to relax," Theo observed and Blaise sighed.

"In that she decided sex with a near stranger was a really great way to distract herself from the fact she'd just seen her boyfriend murdered and her world destroyed? You can call it relaxed if you want. Your Luna's right, really." He swallowed a generous mouthful of his laced coffee. "It was a stupid thing for me to do, but I was a little freaked out myself and not thinking about much other than what was right in front of me." He paused. "I assure you, she was willing. Aggressive, even."

"This is harder than I thought it would be." Theo sank lower into his chair and watched the three women, watched his Luna.

. . . . . . . . . .

The afternoon didn't permit time to have a serious discussion about whether to stay and fight or run either. Draco had rather graciously asked Hermione to select a suite of rooms she could be comfortable in and then Theodore pushed himself into a raging migraine in order to stack wards around her selection. He'd waved away Hermione's offer to help, pointing out you had to be an actual Nott to adjust the house wards, that Draco could assist only because he'd been there so much as a boy the house knew him.

She'd nodded and watched him work until he felt so stared at he couldn't concentrate. "Could you show her the library or something," he'd hissed at Draco. "Get her out of my hair. She makes me feel like I'm doing a class demonstration or something and she's about to start marking my performance down."

Draco had pulled his hostile bride away and shoved her into the library and suggested she amuse herself while the men worked. She'd thrown three books at his head, hitting him once, before he got the door safely closed.

"Fucking tosser," she'd muttered at his retreating back.

"I cannot understand why you'd want to bed that woman," Theo had said upon Draco's return.

The blond had narrowed his eyes and just said, "Let's get the rest of the warding done, shall we?"

Ginny had shrugged and said she didn't care where she stayed. Other than a fairly clear dislike of Malfoy, she'd yet to express an opinion of any sort. "She's shut down," Theo had said, watching her sit and stare out a window.

"I think it really hit her what had happened, that it was real, when Draco shoved Granger up against that wall," Blaise had agreed, looking worried.

"What made us think we could whisk them away from that horror show right into another battle?" Theo asked once the warding was done, when all three women had retreated to the terrace alone, Granger's spiteful looks warning enough to stay away. "And to expect them to trust us? How bloody naïve could we be?"

. . . . . . . . . .

Luna sat on the edge of the bed that night, her legs tucked under her, her hair hanging down in her face. Theo slipped next to her, noticing that even with her own clothes back she'd returned to his shirt and pajama bottoms to sleep. The sight of her wrapped up in his own clothes tugged at him; she was a nearly abandoned waif lost in his bed.

"Hey," he said, taking her hand.

"Hey," she said, her voice quiet. She didn't move other than to squeeze his fingers.

"You okay?" he asked, knowing it was a ridiculous question. No one was okay.

"I don't know if I can do it again," she said, still not moving. "I thought I was brave, that bravery was just… but then I was in that dungeon at Malfoy Manor for so long and I couldn't even bring myself to go back to school, to face that last year. I hid until Neville summoned us all back and I thought we had to win. To lose was… unthinkable. Evil doesn't win, you know. That's not how stories go. The princess finds her crown, the dragon gets slain. The hero wins." She started to cry, her body shaking on the bed and, uncomfortable, he wrapped his free arm around her as she said again, "The hero wins.

"Except he didn't. He _didn't_." She was gasping, doubled over, with her arms around herself as if she were trying to keep herself from literally falling into pieces.

"I know." Theo tugged her into him, pulling her stiff body against his and holding on to her as if he could make it better, as if he could pour strength he didn't even think he had into her frailty. "I won't make you do anything, Luna, not ever. I don't even know if, after we talk about it, we won't all decide to just leave. I'm not noble; I'm no hero. I'm not especially interested in dying on some hopeless quest."

"If we leave, do we hear everyone we left behind screaming forever?"

"I don't know," he admitted.

"Thank you for choosing me," she said, finally letting herself lean against him. He closed his eyes and thought about how off-handedly they'd picked the women most likely to have skills and knowledge that could be useful if they did decide to wage some kind of resistance. How indifferent the three of them had been to the fates and feelings of everyone involved. How dirty that made him feel now as this woman, this wife, sagged against him. I didn't choose _you_, he thought. I chose an Order member, a DA member. It could have been Cho. It could have been any number of people. You weren't even a person to me, just a set of skills and knowledge.

"Oh, I know you didn't choose _me_," she said, answering his thoughts. "You didn't even know me. Still, I'm here and not … somewhere else. And we suit, I think."

He tightened the arms he had wrapped around her. "Thank you for not throwing things at my head," he said, thinking of Draco and Hermione. He could tell without looking that had pulled one of her smiles out, even as she was still sniffling. He held onto her, his one bright light, just feeling her against him until he heard a loud crash from the hallway and jerked away, wand already in hand, ready to defend the slight witch he'd shoved behind him against all comers.

"I think Draco and Hermione might be arguing again," Luna said.

. . . . . . . . . .

_**A/N – Thank you for reading and for sharing your thoughts with me. **_


	4. Chapter 4

Hermione Granger had been in a state of fury since she'd seen Harry fall to the ground, since he hadn't gotten up, since she'd known it was well and truly over. She knew that under all that anger she was terrified; whatever role Voldemort had planned for Harry Potter's Mudblood friend, she was fairly sure she wouldn't like it.

Voldemort's shift from monster to Tom Riddle had chilled her. No one would stand in the way of this appealing man, not now. Not with Dumbledore and the Order gone. Even knowing everything she did she'd found herself listening to his reasonable, modulated voice thinking that maybe she had misunderstood. Maybe he wasn't evil. Then he'd laughed as Malfoy had hauled her by the arm off to their captive Ministry official and that had broken that spell.

She'd wished then – she wished now – that she'd just had the sense to escape while she could, away to the continent or South America or anywhere but here. Books and cleverness has whispered to her to get away but she'd stayed out of friendship and loyalty and some obviously very mistaken idea that good always won in the end.

Well, maybe good did always win in the end but sometimes there were long, dark periods where good seemed to go into hiding. It wasn't really that great to live during one of those times and her brain decided this was an excellent time to remind her how much history she knew and how long these dark periods could be.

She'd wished she could go into hiding, wished she could disappear into the cracks of the blood soaked floor, but instead she found herself getting married, her upper arm gripped so tightly by a man she knew loathed her that she was sure she'd have bruises from his fingers. She'd also been sure those bruises would be the least of her worries by morning.

When they hadn't been, when she'd woken in the morning to find him half-asleep in a chair, a small, rational part of her mind whispered that maybe she'd be okay. Not happy; she didn't expect to ever be happy again. But not dead. Not... hurt.

Even if she did have to be married to Draco Malfoy.

She'd hissed "I will NOT" under her breath at the portion of the vow concerned with obeying and, so far, given how many things she'd thrown at the man's head and how little compulsion she felt to stop when he yelled at her to cut it out, she was fairly sure she'd managed to undercut at least that. Of course, he'd sworn to honor and cherish her and the magic seemed to interpret whatever that meant fairly loosely so maybe if the bastard actually gave her a direct order she'd find out she hadn't tricked the vow quite as much as she'd hoped.

Part of her wanted to just fling herself into his arms and cry and sob and break down the way Luna obviously had with the quiet man who'd rescued her. But Theodore Nott watched Luna with haunted, fascinated eyes, stood every time she walked into the room, held out her chair and fetched her pears and biscuits while Draco Malfoy had barely managed to conceal his disgust at her inferior blood. He hadn't even been able to bring himself to touch her other than to carry her to his wing when she'd frozen right inside the doorway of his Manor.

"For fuck's sake, Granger," he'd muttered. "Move it." When it was clear she couldn't, that she was shaking so hard she could barely stand, he'd unceremoniously scooped her up as if she weighed nothing and hauled her upstairs. When he'd dumped her on his bed she'd scrambled away from him, bracing her back against the wall and reaching for her wand only to find he'd palmed it.

She'd grabbed the nearest object – probably a priceless vase – and hurled it at his head. He'd dodged and stared at her, his mouth open in an equally priceless expression of dumbfounded shock. "Fucking Death Eater," she'd hissed, grabbing another stupid vase, breaking it and fishing the largest shard she could out of the pile. She'd held it toward him, her hand shaking. "Bet you're happy now, but if you touch me, I'll kill you."

He'd laughed at her at that. "With a piece of porcelain? I doubt it. Scratch me, maybe." At her glare he'd relented a little and muttered, "I'm not going to… can we talk about this in the morning? Today has been right shite and I'm about to drop. You can even have the bed, you stupid bitch, just let it go for tonight."

"I'm not getting in your bed, you filthy son of a - ," she'd said and at that he'd snapped.

"Your virtue, whatever may be left of it after months on the run with Potter and Weasley, is quite safe with me, Granger. Take the bed before I decide _you_ can be the one to sleep on the floor."

She'd stayed with her back braced against the wall, watching him, until it was clear he meant it; he wasn't planning on going near her. Oddly insulted – she wasn't even good enough to assault? – she'd finally crept onto the bed and passed out, the shard of vase still in her hand. Someone had thrown a blanket over her because she'd woken filthy and sore from the battle and with pottery still to hand, but with that blanket over her, keeping her warm. Malfoy, dozing in a chair, had snapped alert when she'd moved.

"We're going to Theo's for breakfast," he'd announced. "And to stay."

"Why," she'd demanded.

"Voldemort's back in the house," he'd said shortly, "and I assume, my dulcet bride, that you'd prefer to avoid his company." At her blank look he'd added, "I know I would in your place."

"I want a shower before we leave," was all she'd said. "I'm filthy."

He'd looked at her at that and smiled, a slowly blooming, thoroughly smug look that made her want to hit him. "Never thought I'd hear you admit it, sweetheart."

She'd flushed.

He'd gestured towards a door on the far wall. "Through there. I'll have the elves find you something that fits."

He had, too, tossing her a sundress of a quality she'd never owned and a pair of flat shoes. When she'd emerged, clean and ready to give him a chance, he'd ruined her momentary bout of good will by sneering at her. "Well, you don't clean up as well as I'd hoped, Granger."

"Fuck you, Malfoy."

"I think we've already established that's not going to happen," he'd said and she'd sworn at him again. "Are you ready, my oh so sweet and fragile angel?" he'd asked. "Because I want to get out of here before evil rises to greet the new day. Unless you'd like to experience a Revel? I understand they're tremendously fun."

By the time they'd gotten to Nott Manor, _her_ wand still tucked into _his_ pocket, she was hungry and angry and scared and the man who'd welcomed them to his home, who'd laid a breakfast out, who'd clearly charmed Luna, saw her at her worst. She was embarrassed to hear herself hiss insults at Malfoy, embarrassed at how defensive she was but she couldn't seem to stop herself. This anger was all she had; it was the knife that kept the shaking terror from grabbing her by the throat.

"I hate you," she'd finally screamed at him and she'd seen his eyes change, seen him go from exasperated and tired and tense to coldly resentful.

"I can make you hate me more," he'd said and slammed her up against the wall and she'd started to crumble. The feel of his hand sliding over her, the brutal reminder of what could have been happening instead of this civilized breakfast with these three boys who were as scared as she was, who were trying, somehow, to find a way to make things right, that sliding hand broke something in her and she stopped fighting, stopped doing anything and started just waiting for it to be over.

She heard, as if from a long way away, Theodore Nott say, "Draco," and she wanted to tell him not to bother, that no one could protect her. She could barely tell what the man pressed into her was saying because the world was going white and there was a roaring in her ears; when Ginny was suddenly there grabbing her and pulling her away from the table, from the man who glared at her as if, somehow, she were the villain in all of this; she let the woman lead her away, stumbling down the steps and she was crying into Ginny's arms, crying for the first time since the world had ended and they huddled into one another while their husbands, their enemies, watched from the breakfast table.

. . . . . . . . .

"You need to release his Mark," Luna said, and Hermione crossed her arms.

"Why would I do that?"

"Because it's the right thing to do?" Luna asked picking flowers in the Nott gardens and plaiting them into her hair. "Because you don't want him to be a Death Eater?"

"He's a prick," Hermione muttered.

"Still," Luna said.

"And I don't know how."

Luna shrugged and said, "There's a library." She picked another flower and then added, "It would probably help keep you from thinking."

"There's that."

. . . . . . . . . .

The library was predictably stocked with an appalling mix of dark tomes and best-sellers on why blood purity mattered. Hermione wasn't sure which she found more vile. Her fury had been restored by Draco's condescending suggestion she let the men work and once he left she started violently ripping books off shelves. 'Let the men work'. Hah! She'd show him. Any idiot could add an extra layer of wards, though the way Theodore Nott had been weaving them into the existing ones had been fairly impressive. Still, warding. Warding was trivial. Releasing that bastard from his Mark would be an accomplishment.

Of course, she might kill him in the process. That Mark was probably a nasty bit of work.

But, looking through some of the books, she was pretty sure she could figure out how to do it.

. . . . . . . . . .

"I'm sorry."

Hermione was fairly sure she must have heard wrong but she turned to face the wretched man anyway. He was pulling off boots and setting them neatly under the side of the bed – their bed – in the freshly warded suite.

"I beg your pardon," she said and he grimaced.

"We had this idea, this damn fool idea, that if everything went to hell we'd be able to make it right."

The look she gave him must have been scorching because he flinched a bit under it.

"I know," he muttered. "It seemed to make a bit more sense after several glasses of whiskey."

"I'm not sure what to be most contemptuous of," Hermione said with some disgust, turning back to the closet that had been stocked with random clothes in her size. She supposed the manor must have a fairly large attic that the house elves had scoured because the selection they'd found for her was a rather peculiar mix of modern and historical clothing.

With wizards, of course, you could never be quite sure whether the cockamamie Victorian gown was actually Victorian or something currently considered fashionable. She supposed she should offer thanks to some obscure god of good taste that Draco seemed to prefer things simple. He might be a condescending, arrogant git but he did dress well.

"Huh?" he asked now and she answered him as she pushed through her new clothing options.

"Well, the idea the three of you could overthrow that monster was idiotic to begin with. Then that you would recruit help via marriage was pretty stupid. Then that you didn't bother to, I don't know, _ask_ any of us if we'd be interested in helping was arrogant and awful. But, after all that, that you decided it would somehow be better to let all three of us spend that first night in total ignorance of your plans? That might actually be the worst part of the entire fiasco. I thought you meant to…" She stopped talking and stopped thinking about what she'd been afraid of. Instead she pulled out a vaguely 1920s dress and wrinkled her nose at it. "How much had you had to drink when you concocted this plan, anyway?"

"A lot," he admitted before saying, "You can't wear that."

"Why?" She demanded.

"Because it's hideous," he said with a disgusted snort.

"Why would you care," she muttered. "I'm just a filthy Mudblood who's good at magic."

"If you want to look worse than you do normally, be my guest," he responded in kind, thus neatly guaranteeing she'd wear the thing the next day.

"Which of your various sins are you sorry for, anyway," she asked, trying to shake the wrinkles out of the dress. "Give me my wand. This dress needs help."

He hesitated but he tossed her the wand with only a muttered, "There's not enough magic in all the world to help that dress."

"Uh huh." She focused on trying to remember wardrobe charms, not an area she'd spent a lot of energy on, while waiting for his reply. As she eyed the dress she let a malicious little part of herself enjoy knowing he was braced against a curse at her hands.

Finally he sighed. "I'm sorry you lost, I'm sorry I didn't tell you, I'm sorry I scared you, I'm sorry I shoved you." He paused. "I'm sorry you're reduced to having to wear that dress."

"This is a lovely dress," she said through gritted teeth, thinking Molly Weasley had probably known a charm to get stains out of silk, which led to thinking of Molly Weasley, dead at a Death Eater's hand lying in a pool of her own blood, and she started to shake and the dress slipped out of her hand.

"I'm going to take you shopping in Paris," he muttered, "and show you what a lovely dress really looks like."

"Fuck you, Malfoy," she said, feeling that rage come spiraling up again. His side – _his side_ – had killed Molly. Maybe it was his own father who'd cast the curse that had struck the woman down. Now the man sat there and criticized her for trying to find something to wear from this worthless pile of moth-eaten rags pulled from some equally worthless Death Eater's attic. "I don't want your stupid Parisian trips. I don't want to be married to you. I don't want _anything_ from you." She clenched her fists and glared at the man, blinking back tears and choking out her last sentence before she stumbled out of the room, desperate to get away from him. "I want Ron and Harry and Molly and you can just go to hell!"

He followed her out into hall. "I'm doing the best I can," he yelled after her and she turned and grabbed some disgusting figurine from an alcove and threw it at him before disappearing into the first room she could find.

"Fucking cunt," he swore as the statuette shattered against the wall next to his head.

"I'm doing the best I can," he repeated, and slid down against the wall and buried his face in his hands and started to shake as he held back the tears.

. . . . . . . . . .

_**A/N – Thank you, all, for taking the time to read and review. I really appreciate it, even if I'm writing so much I'm not actually responding to reviews much. **_


	5. Chapter 5

When Draco escorted Hermione to the breakfast table the next morning the other two couples were already there. She'd returned to their room late and he'd pretended to be asleep. This morning he'd pretended not to notice when she put on the stained and wrinkled silk flapper dress that had precipitated their argument the night before. The ridiculous dress was too thin and she was trying not to shiver in the morning air but he was afraid if he cast a warming charm she'd bolt back indoors, probably after lobbing something at him.

She had good aim too. If he didn't have excellent reflexes he'd be nursing a concussion by now.

"So," Theo's smile was rather forced as they sat. "Maybe we can manage our second breakfast together without borderline assault or anyone throwing anything? Because I'd rather like to have a discussion about what it is we want to do next."

Hermione took a deep breath and tried to control the way her hands shook as she picked up the tea pot. Draco took it away from her and, ignoring her glare, filled her cup and asked quietly if she wanted milk or sugar.

"Sugar, please," she whispered, and he passed her the sugar bowl. She scooped up a heaping teaspoon, added it to her cup, and stirred it slowly. After she took a sip she said, her voice only somewhat steadier than her hands had been, "It was a really… nice… idea to want to somehow fix – "

"It won't work," Luna said. Her voice was steadier than Hermione's but her own hands also shook as she cut a pear into smaller and smaller slices. "There were so many people in the Order and – ." She stopped and looked down and swallowed hard. "I don't think I can do it again."

Blaise looked grey and tired; Ginny had sat as far from him as she could and, other than shaking her head when offered a plate, hadn't acknowledged anyone at the table. "I don't want to be like them," he said. "I don't want some… wife… making babies for Voldemort, scared of me. I don't want to be branded."

"Thanks," Draco muttered.

"Well, I don't," Blaise snapped. "And we all will be at the end of the month if we're around to be caught."

"You mean slave," Luna said quietly and when Blaise snapped his head to look at her she shrugged and said, "The 'wives' he handed out. They're really slaves." She held her wrists out and turned her hands first one way and then the other as if looking for manacles. "We're really slaves."

"You are not," Theo said, his voice ragged. "The vows bind both ways. I'm as chained to you as you are to me."

"How many Death Eaters added fidelity?" she asked, tilting her head to the side. "How many didn't include obey?"

"Probably none," he admitted, taking her hand. "But I did and please, _please_ don't refer to yourself as a slave."

"I didn't vow to obey," Ginny said, her tone dull. Blaise made an uncomfortable noise and she glanced up from the seat where she was huddled and added, "I didn't. I have six older brothers, including F… Fred and George. I've been wiggling out of would-be-binding vows since I could talk." She looked momentarily smug. "Didn't vow fidelity either. We might not even be married for all I know."

Hermione began to smile, a slow, delighted look. "I didn't vow to obey either."

"Figures," Draco muttered.

"How did you make that work?" Blaise demanded. "It's a bleedin' standard spell and that Ministry clown seemed competent enough."

"Test me," Hermione said, her voice somewhat stronger now, looking at Draco. "Order me to do something."

He shrugged and said, "Kiss me."

"Fuck you, Malfoy," she said, glaring at him. "That wasn't exactly cricket."

"It was a good test," he said, smirking at her, "since we all know you'd never do it voluntarily."

"I think you have to phrase it as a direct order," Blaise said.

Draco looked back at Hermione and said, "All right then. I _order you_ to kiss me."

"And I order you to bloody well fuck off," she snapped. "Wanker."

"I think we can safely say the lady is free of any compulsion to do what I tell her," Draco announced. "Try it with yours."

"Nice phrasing," Blaise muttered. "And to think all those girls used to follow you around." He sighed and looked at Ginny. "I order you to throw tea in Draco's smug face."

Draco laughed and even Ginny briefly smiled before she shook her head. "No compulsion, though the idea is tempting."

"Theo?" Draco asked but the man shook his head.

"It wasn't even in the vows."

"Some men apparently considered how awful that vow was," Hermione said with more than a little malice. "And some didn't."

"I order you to be less of a bitch," Draco muttered under his breath at the same time Luna said, "I like that dress."

"Thank you," Hermione smiled, sending a pointed look at Draco. "I didn't have anything to speak of for clothing so the elves went and found me a bunch of somewhat random things. I thought this one was pretty."

"It is," Luna agreed. "I could help you with the stains if you wanted. I like old clothes but they sometimes need a little help."

"That would be nice," Hermione said, her voice subdued again. "I've never been good at clothing charms like that. M…Molly was and she was going to teach me after the war but she…." She picked up her tea and gulped some down.

Draco looked at her, an expression of dawning understanding flickering across his face before he abruptly stood up and stalked back into the manor.

"Well," Theo muttered, "so much for figuring out whether we should fight or run."

"Run," Ginny whispered. "He knows who I am. He somehow _knows _it was me who had his diary."

Theo looked from her to Blaise and then flicked a quick glance at Hermione who explained. "Lucius Malfoy slipped Tom Riddle's diary into her things one year. It was a horcrux and she ended up a little possessed." She reached out a hand across the table towards her nearly unresponsive friend. "Ginny, how could he know it was you? He couldn't."

"But he does," she looked up at Hermione. "He looked at me and _he knew_." She mumbled something and when Hermione made a questioning noise Ginny looked up at Blaise and said, "Please get me away from him. I… I'd do anything. Anything at all."

"You don't have to bargain," the man said, looking horrified as Draco came back out, a heavy cloak in his hands that he draped over Hermione. "Just because I make you eat, make you… I… If you want me to…"

"What are we talking about," Draco demanded and then, as Hermione went to push the cloak off he added, "You're cold in that silk thing. I can see you shivering."

"Ginny votes to run," Theo said.

"If she wants to escape, I'm taking her, so I'm out," Blaise said, looking relieved. "It was a damn fool idea anyway."

"I have to agree," Theo said. "And Luna's…"

"I can't do it again," the woman said. "I… I wish I could but I…"

"You don't need to apologize for not wanting to risk your life." Theo squeezed her hand. "Truth be told, it – the whole idea - sounded a lot better after too much alcohol than it does in the cold light of tea and toast."

"So you're both out," Draco said. "So much for the trio of brave Slytherins." His tone was mocking as he pulled the cloak he'd fetched back over Hermione's shoulders again. "Let me take care of you, you dumb bint. You're cold. Accept the bloody cloak."

"What about you?" Theo asked Draco.

The man's bitter laugh settled over the table. "I don't have a choice. Branded, as Blaise was so kind to point out. He can track me wherever I go, summon me, hurt me. I can't just run and hide."

"But what if you could?" Hermione asked.

"Why did you want to battle him?" Luna said at the same time. "You're in, you're one of the elect. Why fight against that?"

"I can't so there's no point in wishing," Draco said to Hermione and then, sagging in his seat he said to Luna, "I suppose – damn romantic notion – I thought if I could fight, even if I died – I could redeem myself. I could prove that I'm… I'm someone other than…" He rubbed at his arm. "No such luck, of course. No redemption for me, no forgiveness. Eternal and utter damnation." He looked up at the sky. "I need a drink."

"But what if you _could_," Hermione pressed again and Draco snorted.

"Have a drink? This early? Hello, alcoholism."

"No, you… what if I could break the connection to your Mark? Free you?"

"Why would you do that for me?" He didn't even look at her.

"Well," she admitted, "it might kill you."

"If I'm dead you will lose the wall between yourself and…"

"I _know_," she hissed, "but you hauled me off that battleground and you saved me from things I'd rather not think about and so I'm offering to try anyway."

Silence. He looked at her in silence and she sat there and looked back, a shivering woman in a stained dress, huddled under his cloak. "If I stay a Death Eater," he said very quietly, "I can protect you. I _will _protect you. If you kill me, even by accident, you risk him finding you and passing you out to another follower or, Merlin help you, worse. You're gambling with… with a lot of very unpleasant things, and for me. _For me._ You don't even like me – you hate me, I think you said - we certainly don't have… I can't let you do that, risk that. No." He shook his head and said it again. "Granger, no."

"Actually, as we've already established," she said, her voice as soft as his but far more implacable, "you can't order me to do anything, much less _not_ to do something. And I'm going to try to break that foul spell." She met his gaze for a long moment. "I'm a lot more likely to succeed if you help, though."

. . . . . . . . . .

Draco cleared breakfast tables to the kitchen, muttering he needed to be doing something when Theo pointed out there were elves around to help with that. Once safely away from the others he bent down over the counter and tried to control the all too familiar shaking, a place he stayed until he felt a light touch on his shoulder.

He spun around, expecting Hermione, finding Luna.

"What do you want?" he ground out, the words sounding even more harsh than he had intended.

"It will be okay," she said, and set a cup she'd brought with her onto the counter. "Let me see your hand."

Draco was about to tell the woman to go find someone else to be insane at when he thought of Theo and how much better the man had handled this entire debacle than he had and so he shoved his hand toward the seemingly frail woman in front of him.

She traced her fingers over the lines of his palm and said, "She doesn't hate you, you know."

"Could have fooled me," Draco muttered.

Luna nodded. "Imagine everyone you love has died, killed in front of you, and you get married against your will to someone who's always let you know how beneath him you are, how filthy, how unworthy."

Draco swallowed hard. "My chickens are roosting, aren't they," he whispered.

Luna shrugged.

"They always do." She paused. "Unless they get violently eaten. Chickens get eaten by predators a lot."

"Very reassuring," Draco said. He went to pull his hand back from her but the strength of her grip surprised him.

"How would you react if you were where she is?" Luna asked.

"You aren't throwing things and screaming at Theo," Draco muttered.

"No," Luna agreed serenely as she traced her fingers over his palm. "Everyone's different. Your love line starts out very faint but gets much deeper. Try to look deeper."

. . . . . . . . . .

"You have to let me buy you some clothing," Draco muttered as the fragile silk of Hermione's dress caught on the corner of the table in the library and tore. "I realize you despise me, but I _did_ vow to honor and protect and all that and right now you aren't even letting me protect you from the bloody table."

"I'm fine," she said, flipping one of the books she'd left out open.

"And I'm rich," he snapped, "and once we flee I won't be any more, so we should do that shopping now and get you some clothes to wear that don't shred upon contact with furniture."

"Didn't hide funds away," she asked and he shrugged.

"Not as many as Theo did, no. He's got a house tucked away waiting for us and everything, a back up to the back up plan. And Blaise has always had accounts on the continent."

"So you'll go from being the richest of your little trio to the poorest," she asked with a smirk and, when he didn't respond, glanced up ready to tease him some more only to find him studying her.

"It all depends on how you look at it," he said and she narrowed her eyes, clearly unsure what he meant, then shrugged and passed the book she'd found the day before over to him.

"When I was busy being your obedient wife and staying out of your hair while you fixed the warding yesterday, I found this."

He snorted at her description of herself as 'obedient' but, when he looked at her and saw the wan expression she was trying to hide, he said, "I am sorry about that, you know?"

"About what?" she asked, sinking down into a chair at the table.

"The obedience thing. For what it's worth, I'm glad it didn't take; I wouldn't have wanted that. I just…" He ran a hand through his hair, feeling embarrassed. "I didn't even know that would be in the ceremony, Granger. I really didn't."

"It's okay," she muttered, looking away from him.

"It's not," he said. "It's… gross. But I was so afraid my father would object to you I… I had to get you out of there as quickly as I could before he could tell me not to pick a –"

"A Mudblood?" she interrupted him.

"A Muggle-born, yes," he said, his tone steady as he used the polite term and she flushed.

"Anyway," she said, poking at the book, "I think this would work but it will require some tweaking." She bit the inside of her cheek and huffed out a breath and then admitted, "I'm not really great at adapting things. I'm… I can follow any instructions, I can research. But…"

"It's okay," he said, watching her through his lashes, not letting her see him do it. "I'm pretty good at creative applications but I hate research. It always seems like boring drudgery to me."

"We make a good team then," she said and he startled, a quick movement that he quickly controlled and dropped his gaze back to the book and read the page she'd marked. She was right, though how she'd find this spell he'd never know; a library full of books and she'd found a spell he could work with in only one day.

Dumbledore really hadn't tried to help Snape at all, had he? So much, Draco thought, for the noble good guys. He glanced back up at the woman sitting across from him, flipping through another book. Nobility. Bravery. Tied to him forever and seemingly hating him for it, helping him anyway.

The spell, he thought, focus on this spell, not the woman who'd found it. If he just switched _that_ and added some extra warding _there_, maybe changed _that_, this would work. This would really work. He didn't even think it would be dangerous. Dark. Illegal as hell. Obscure and old and dark and illegal but it would work. He could make this work. Just… "He'll know."

"What?"

"I can adapt this." He said it flatly with no trace of arrogance; this was too dangerous – not to mention far too important to him personally – to claim to be able to do it if he wasn't wholly sure he could. "It's an ugly spell and I'm shocked you even opened the book; something this absolutely vile doesn't seem your thing. But I can adapt it."

"And?"

"And the moment we break the connection he'll feel it. He'll _know_."

"So we go into hiding and break it." She shrugged. "Maybe we can time it so he's distracted?"

"Maybe." Draco doubted that would work. "It'll hurt like hell, too."

"For you?" she asked and at his nod she bit her lip and considered. "Then we have pain potions on hand and a room prepared at Theo's hidey place for you to recover and when it's done you just collapse."

"We really should do this here so when he comes looking for me, which he will, it's to a place we aren't at anymore." Draco was staring back down at the spell in the disgusting book she'd found, already dreading how much this was going to hurt. Assuming he survived the trauma, recovery from breaking this would make getting the Mark look like a nice wank in a warm shower.

Getting the Mark had hurt like a son-of-a-bitch.

"Then I'll side-along apparate you out when it's done," she said impatiently.

"Portkeys," he muttered.

"What?"

"Theo's got portkeys to his place," he explained. "Too far away for apparation."

"You planned a pretty good bolt hole for men thinking they were going to fight the good fight," she muttered.

"Portkeys, fidelius charm, warding that should impress even you. 'Be prepared' is the Slytherin motto, you know."

"Really?"

"Well, that and 'Use Snakes to Kill People'." He looked up and her and gave her an unsure smirk at that and she looked horrified until a grin blossomed on her face, a grin that turned into giggles, and finally to full, if somewhat hysterical, laughter.

. . . . . . . . . .

_**A/N – Thank you for all your lovely thoughts. Given that it's called "The Ones Who Ran," I doubt the decision to flee surprised anyone.**_


	6. Chapter 6

It had been the worst night of her life. When Harry died, when she watched him fall, Ginny realized things were about to get very bad. They'd already been _bad_, she'd already watched friends die, and now, well, now she expected to be slaughtered out of hand. She hoped it would be painless. Fast.

When she watched Voldemort turn back into Tom Riddle and heard herself gasp, when she saw him look at her as if her gasp had carried across the noisy hall, as if her gasp floated to him separate from all the others, she went numb. He knew who she was. He _knew._ She buried her face against Percy and began to cry, the silent tears soaking into his arm. She missed seeing her parents killed. She missed seeing her teachers killed. She missed seeing most of the adult members of the Order killed. She just hid her face against her big brother and wept with fear until she felt someone tug on her arm and looked up to see Blaise Zabini, a boy – a man – she barely knew studying her. He swallowed hard at the sight she made and looked at Percy and said, very quietly, "I'll take care of her. She'll be safer with me than she'd be anywhere else." Percy nodded, the sharp nod of a man who knows he's likely going into a hellhole, and shoved her towards the other man.

"Do that," he said, voice low and fierce, then, "I love you, Gin."

Ginny let the man lead her over to the side of the hall where she discovered he intended to _marry_ her, right there in the blood-soaked hall where her boyfriend had been murdered. "I don't have a choice either," he said and she took a deep breath.

The official said, voice strained, "Do _you_ have any changes you'd like to make to the standard ceremony?"

Zabini shook his head. "I'm sure the regular version is fine."

When the man began reciting the ceremony Ginny's brain turned on. This was a _binding ceremony_. This bloody buggering Ministry fuck planned to marry her to this near stranger in a _binding ceremony_

Oh, hell no.

She began to murmur counter charms as quietly as she could. She was surprised the ceremony was so easy to outmaneuver but, of course, the charms she was using weren't exactly part of the school curriculum. She'd grown up with Fred and George and the thought that their ongoing harassment and the skills she'd learned as a result were now going to save her from a vow that actually included the antiquated notion of obedience – what book of standard ceremonies had this Ministerial idiot found this vow in anyway? One published in 1856? – well, that gave her a grim sense of pleasure. If would have pleased them, she thought.

At the end of the wedding that, if she'd successfully cast, hadn't even happened, Zabini took her hand and pulled her from the hall as quickly as he could. "We're going to one of my mother's places tonight," he muttered, sounding uncomfortable. "Is there anything you need before we get the hell out of here?"

She shook her head and then flinched as he pulled her tightly against him. "Side-along," he explained briefly and she nodded and then they were gone.

. . . . . . . . . .

As soon as they were inside the elegant townhouse she began to shake again, the burst of rage that had fueled her during the ceremony gone. The man who'd just vowed to honor and cherish her had her wand in his hand, fished out of her pocket after he'd brought them here, and he looked like he was about to be sick to his stomach.

"Which do you want more," he asked, "a shower or a drink?"

"I'm underage," she said, watching him pour himself something, watching him shove her wand without thinking back into his own pocket.

He made a choked sound that might have been an attempt at a laugh. "You just survived a battle and got handed out as a war bride. I think you can have a drink if you want."

"Yes then," she said, feeling a reckless, and he poured another one and handed it to her. She could still feel herself shake, wondering what this boy planned to do to her, until he went to sit down and noticed he still had her wand. He awkwardly pulled it out and handed it back to her.

"I was afraid it would drop so I held onto it," he muttered. "I didn't mean to take it away from you."

"Thank you." She closed her fingers around it, feeling so much safer now, feeling herself relax.

"Do you want to play chess or something," he asked and she smiled at him, feeling the tables of power turn in the room. This poor, scared, awkward boy who was under the mistaken impression he'd married her, who wasn't sure what to do and so suggested _chess_ of all things. She could do this. She could survive this night. She could _forget_.

She could deal with tomorrow when it came.

"Yes," she said, taking a generous swallow of what turned out to be some kind of whiskey. It burned and than made her feel like she could do anything. She licked her lips and took a step towards him. "I'd love to play chess."

They started with the chess. And then the shower. And then the bed. And she managed to forget everything except the way his dark eyes, so different than Harry's, glowed when he looked at her, everything except the way his skin tasted, everything except the feel of his hands on her. She pushed it all away and even when she woke up with him, his mouth grazing over her in a room flooded with sun light, when she rolled onto him and laughed as they greeted the morning, everything was okay.

It stayed okay until Draco Malfoy shoved Hermione up against a wall and reminded them both they'd lost everything. That nothing was okay.

Then she realized she'd been in the bed of another man with Harry's body still cooling on the floor where he'd been killed and she began to dry heave in the garden, her body trying to reject the poison she'd brought into herself, the defilement she'd embraced.

"I'll never forgive myself," she whispered to Hermione as they sat there and compared their nights. "Never."

Hermione didn't say anything, just nodded and stroked the other woman's hand. It was Luna who asked, her voice curious, "I thought Harry was a nice person? I thought he loved you?"

Ginny looked as if she'd been struck and Hermione hissed, "You're just making it worse," but Luna shook her head.

"He's passed through the Veil. Why wouldn't he be happy you found a way to not be afraid? It's what Voldemort wants, you know. He wants us to be afraid; it's like drink to him, our fear. Love and happiness and laughter, that's what he can't stand." Luna stood and brushed some of the grass off herself. "I think Harry would be glad to know you were safe. I think he'd understand."

Ginny stared up at her, her eyes wet. "I don't think so," she whispered, her voice hoarse.

Luna sighed and said, "I'm going to go explore the house. I know it's hard not to be afraid. It's like a chain around my neck too."

Ginny watched her walk away, Theodore Nott's pajama bottoms dragging in the wet grass, and said, "I wish it were that easy."

Hermione snorted. "She's still herself, that's for sure."

That tricked a laugh out of Ginny. "It must be nice, huh?"

Blaise Zabini found her later and asked if she wanted to pick out a room, that they planned to stay here until they could figure out what to do next. She shook her head. It didn't matter; why did this boy think it mattered where she slept?

"Surely you care at least a little," he coaxed. "Granger made Draco show her every suite in the place before she'd deign to pick one." But she shook her head and didn't look at him and he went away again.

He came back when the sun was lower and she'd started to shiver but still hadn't moved and he said, "Dinner's laid out. I asked Granger what your favorite food was and the elves did their best to make it." She shook her head but this time he wasn't willing to be brushed off. "You can't stay out here, you'll freeze. At least come inside where you'll be warmer." He put his hand on her arm, clearly meaning to help her up, and she jerked away from him.

"Don't touch me," she snapped, then repeated herself far more quietly, "Don't ever touch me."

"Okay," she heard his voice shake but he wasn't leaving. "You still have to get up and come in. Come at least look at the dinner." He was nearly begging and she drearily pulled herself to her feet. He held out a hand, then dropped it back to his side with a worried frown when she just plodded towards the terrace steps and back into the house without taking it.

Hermione met her inside the door and, exchanging some look with Zabini over her head, pulled her to a dining room where she was nudged and tucked and coaxed into a chair. She sighed and sat down and stared down the plate in front of her.

"What happened to my brothers?" she asked. "You told us not to waste energy on hope. Fine. Find out what happened to them."

"If I do, will you eat?" Zabini asked and at that she sent him a look of utter loathing. He picked up a fork and began calmly eating the shepherd's pie in front of him, watching her with level eyes. "Take five bites and I'll leave to go to Diagon Alley and find out. If the plate is clean when I come back, I'll tell you what I found out."

"I'm not a toddler," she hissed.

"No," he said, "but I told your brother I would take care of you. I didn't expect that to include making sure you didn't starve to death, but here we are." He took another bite and smiled at her. "You want information; I want you to eat. I think we can come to some arrangement that suits us both."

Ginny looked around the table, searching for an ally. Hermione was looking away and Malfoy looked amused. Luna was watching her, seemingly just waiting to see what she'd do; Nott was leaning back in his chair and watching Zabini with an approving smirk.

"That's not fair," she said, feeling trapped and helpless.

"What makes you think I do fair?" the man asked with a shrug, eating another bite. After he swallowed he added, "So what will it be?"

She picked up her fork and ate five bites in rapid succession and then put the fork down and leaned back. With her arms crossed in front of her she tipped her head to the side and said, "Shouldn't you be leaving?"

Zabini smiled and pushed back from the table. "Your wish, fair maiden," he said.

Draco Malfoy said, "If you aren't back in sixty minutes, I'm going to go find you."

Zabini shook his head. "If I get stopped that long, we're fucked. If I don't come back, get out and take her with you."

Ginny looked at Malfoy, a question in her eyes and he sneered at her. "You think it's safe for anyone to go wandering about asking questions about a family of infamous blood traitors? He's risking his life for you, sweetheart. I hope you appreciate it."

She almost reached her out hand to stop the man from going but he was already out of the room. She began to choke down the pie in front of her, not tasting it, the only emotion piercing her numb shell fear; she wasn't even sure what she was afraid of.

When he came back, she was waiting, feet folded under her as she sat on the bed in the room he'd picked out. He tossed a light coat onto a chair and sat down on it. As he pulled off his shoes he asked, voice neutral, "Did you eat?"

"Go ask Malfoy," she said, angry he'd blackmailed her, afraid of what he was going to tell her.

Relieved he was back.

"I'd rather ask you," he said.

"Still, I'm sure the jailer you left me with will be happy to attest to my good behavior."

He threw the second shoe he removed to floor with slightly more than necessary force. "We're not your jailers."

"Well, you could have fooled me." She took a deep breath. "How are my brothers?"

He smiled then, a genuine smile and she felt hope tangle itself in her throat and when he said, "They're fine," she gasped and began to shake in relief.

"Are you sure," she asked and he nodded.

"I don't know about the two oldest ones," he admitted, "but Percy and the twin who survived the battle and the git from my year were all in the apartment above that joke shop. They're scared and shaken and worried as hell about you, but they're fine."

She wrapped her arms around herself and doubled over as though she had been punched in the stomach. "I thought he would kill all of them," she said, though the tears that really started to come now. "I thought they would all be dead. I was…." I was afraid you wouldn't come back, she added in her head. I was afraid they were dead. I was afraid you were dead.

"Everyone's dead," she just whispered.

"It'll be okay," Zabini said and, at her incredulous look, he sighed. "Well, okay, it'll be awful. But they're alive. The Dark Lord wants to rule wizarding Britain, not a graveyard. He knows he can't kill everyone."

"Me though," she said, so quietly she doubted he heard.

"Look," he said, "Theo wants to talk about whether we stay and fight the way we'd planned when we decided it would be a brilliant idea to marry you and found a new revolutionary group, or whether we should escape. Think about what you want."

"I get a say," she asked, eyeing him and he sighed again.

"Yes." He moved towards the bed and she flinched and pulled away from him.

"I'm sorry," he said, and she wasn't even sure what he was referring to.

"Me too," she said, putting her head down.

"Do you want me to sleep on the floor?" he asked. "I'm not… I promised to look after you, to protect you, and I'm not going to go sleep in some other room when… when I don't know if some group of drunken Death Eaters might not show up at any time, wards be damned."

"Thank you," she whispered and he exhaled and nodded.

"I am sorry, Ginny," he said.

. . . . . . . . . . .

When she woke the world seemed grey. She lay in the bed, curled on her side without moving until Zabini touched her shoulder and she inhaled and pulled away from him. "Theo's getting breakfast ready," the man said, his voice muffled and she didn't even bother to shrug. "Please get up," he said and when she didn't move he yanked the blankets off her.

"Letting you fall into this state doesn't count as 'taking care of you' either," he muttered. "Get up, take a shower and get dressed, or I'll do it for you."

"You wouldn't dare," she said, anger waking her up a little.

"Do you want to try me?" he asked, a hint of amusement in his tone. "Be good and I won't even make you eat until lunch."

"Fuck you," she said and watched him shake his head.

"Because that worked out so well last time?"

She glared at him, but got out of the bed and caught the clothes he tossed her. "George had some of your things at his shop. I brought them back for you."

"I want to write them."

"Too dangerous," he shook his head. "Get cleaned up, get dressed. We'll figure out how to get you all together after breakfast."

She caught her breath and looked at him. "I'm trying, Ginny," he said. "It would help if you tried too."

. . . . . . . . . .

_**A/N – Thank you for all your lovely words and thoughts. I appreciate it so much. **_

_**(And soon – soon – I'll stop having stories pushing their way out of my head so fast I don't have time to respond to reviews. In the meanwhile, please accept this generic, public thank you.)**_


	7. Chapter 7

Draco sprawled in front of the fire in one of the smaller parlors at Nott Manor. He and Blaise had pulled out a chess set in order to stay in the same room as the women they'd married without seeming to hover. He'd spent the day trying to keep her warm in that ridiculous dress she'd insisted on wearing; in the library she'd pretended not to notice when he cast a warming charm. Now, watching her shiver _again_ because she was too damn proud to admit she was wrong, he summoned a blanket from a chest in the back of the room and tossed it at her. She glared, though the glare seemed a little more pro forma than earlier ones had been; he decided to count it as a victory that she wrapped the blanket around herself.

Despite the accord he and Granger had come to over books and research he knew she still simmered with anger: anger her side had lost, anger he'd married her, anger that he made her safer.

At least she wasn't throwing things anymore.

He knew he'd annoyed her all day, following her from one room to another until she'd snapped, "Why won't you just let me be?"

"Because I'm afraid," he'd wanted to say. "Because I need to see you're safe to believe it. Because the moment you're out of my sight I start to worry you've been Snatched out of the garden." That, however, was much too honest so he'd just drawled, "Just trying to honor and cherish and all that, sweetheart."

She'd let out an exasperated huff and ignored him after that, though he suspected the detailed conversation she and Ginny had had about their periods had been for his benefit. He hadn't given her the satisfaction of so much as a raised eyebrow.

Now, as he moved another pawn, he said, "You have to let me buy you more clothes."

"Why?" Hermione demanded, adding with a slightly malicious lilt to her voice, "I don't see what's wrong with this dress, after all."

Draco turned from the board and looked at the woman, still wrapped in the partially shredded silk dress and snorted. "You mean other than it's too thin, torn, and stained?"

"It's ugly," Blaise said, moving a pawn of his own. "And you're only wearing it to be a pain in the arse."

"I like it." Hermione ran a hand along the fabric and met Draco's eyes, a challenge in her own.

"Fine," he said, turning back to move a knight. "But you need more than one dress and I'd rather like to get that taken care of before we torture me and escape to the continent."

"Torture?" Luna sounded distracted.

"Well," Blaise moved another pawn and Draco swore. "You know how your friend Granger is. She's going to manage to inflict a little suffering before she frees Draco up."

"Do you have to?" Luna propped herself up on an elbow and looked at Hermione who flushed a bit.

"It's not because I want to hurt the man," she muttered. Ginny snickered and Hermione grinned at her for a moment before sagging. "It's just…"

"The bastard tied his little ownership brand into me pretty tightly," Draco said, moving a rook then clenching his jaw as Blaise captured it. "We still aren't totally sure how to do it, I want to keep looking at the alternatives, but I'm pretty sure it's going to hurt getting his hooks out of me. I'm going to be at the lady's mercy for a while afterwards, even assuming it doesn't kill me."

"It won't kill you," Hermione scoffed. "Baby." He looked back at her again and she stiffened under his level gaze, finally looking away first. Point for me, he thought.

"So," he drawled, "about those clothes you're going to let me buy you."

. . . . . . . . . .

Blaise found the way Draco constantly tried to antagonize Granger fascinating; he'd done it for years and for years he'd assumed his friend had just latched onto a target to pick on. Draco tended to push at people – someone less of a friend would call a spade a spade and admit it was bullying - until his victims either broke or pushed back. People who pushed back he tended to either befriend or ignore. Granger, though, she'd pushed back for years and he'd just kept pushing at her harder.

It wasn't until the man had said he'd "take her" in their marriage scheme, said it so hurriedly Blaise and Theo had both laughed, that he'd realized Draco has probably been carrying a torch for years. He hoped the man didn't come to regret getting what he wanted.

He let his own eyes glide over his own Ginevra – terrified, clever Ginevra – without seeming to stare. Letting her seduce him had been a mistake but, damn it, what had she expected him to do when she'd suggested they shower together? Turn her down?

If he hadn't been so shaky after realizing their side had won, hadn't been so terrified himself that Draco actually meant to go through with the plan they'd concocted when enough whiskey had stolen their sense, he would have realized sleeping with a woman who'd just watched her boyfriend be murdered was not likely to end well.

He glanced over at Luna and Theo; the pair were on one of the small couches and Luna had her feet in Theo's lap and the man was slowly rubbing them. They looked like a normal couple instead of a pair of near strangers tied together by this bizarre marriage plot. He looked back at Ginny, curled on a couch near Granger, keeping his face expressionless, and felt a wave of bitterness and regret that he'd handled this so badly. I'm just a kid, he thought, turning back to the chessboard. I don't know how to do this.

"I, at least, want clothes," Ginny said in response to Draco's needling and Blaise, moving a knight, frowned. "Is it safe to go on a shopping trip?"

"You wouldn't be hoping for a side excursion to a joke shop, would you?" Blaise asked, still keeping his eyes on the chessboard. Did she really not understand how dangerous going out would be? He'd told her he would find a way to get her to see her brothers; did she really trust him that little?

"I wouldn't go alone," she muttered. "I'd take Hermione."

"You'll take _me,_" he said, turning and glaring at her, "or won't go at all."

"Not my jailer?" Her tone was bitter and he flinched.

"He's trying to keep you safe," Draco said. "Don't be such a bitch about it. If anyone who mattered saw you and Hermione strolling, alone, into that store they'd scoop you up and haul you both back someplace unpleasant."

"I might be harder to 'scoop up' than you think," Hermione muttered.

"And you might be a lot easier than _you_ think," Theo said. "This isn't a game. If we go out in public you need to play it our way. We know these people."

"So do I," she snapped.

"No," he said very quietly. "You don't. If you did you'd never risk getting Snatched, not even to see family. Not even to see Weasley."

. . . . . . . . . .

Hermione glared at Nott. She was tired, already, of the way these boys seemed to think she needed so much protecting. They didn't trust her to dress herself. They didn't trust her to recognize danger. I spent _months_ avoiding Snatchers, she thought.

Of course, I didn't try to do it in Diagon Alley, she admitted to herself. Maybe…

She sighed; Malfoy was right about the clothes, damn him. And the other two were probably right about the danger. She hated this so much. "Your way, then," she said, not noticing the way Malfoy's head snapped to look at her when he heard the despair in her tone.

"Our way," he said, his tone almost cautious, without any of the gloating she would have expected. "You won't fight us?"

She shook her head. What was the point? They were right, she needed clothes, she wanted to see Ron, and the world had gotten a lot more dangerous in the last 48 hours. She wouldn't have even thought that was possible but it turned out it had been. She was married to Draco Malfoy and living in a world where Voldemort ran things. The only thing that could make this worse would be getting Snatched; she had too much experience with that and if playing along with this husband would get her what she wanted she was willing to do it. She just wished she could find some way to take a little bit of power back; she wished she could needle him just a little.

"I want a ring," she said, tickled by an idea. "Not just clothes."

"What?" The yelp that elicited from Malfoy was perfection.

"A wedding ring. Something pretty. You've told me multiple times you're wealthy. I want some of that wealth in a ring on my hand." Her voice was sweet to the point of being cloying and Blaise began to laugh until Ginny said, her voice deceptively sleepy, said, "I want one too."

"Jewelry for everyone?" Theo asked but Luna shook her head.

"I don't want a wedding ring purchased on command. The energy would be all wrong."

"How about a necklace," he teased and she laughed but shook her head.

. . . . . . . . . .

"So, tell me what 'your way' means," Ginny asked.

"It would help if you looked cowed and scared the whole time," Draco muttered.

Theo sighed and wished they didn't have to have this conversation. "We'll be domineering pricks. You'll act scared. We'll tell you what to do and make leering suggestions about what will happen if you don't cooperate. If we go to this joke shop – "

"When," Ginny insisted.

" – we'll imply we're deliberately making Granger miserable by showing her the man she can't have anymore because she belongs to Draco now, and 'belongs' is an important word. She'll act like the thing she wants least in the world is for Weasley to see her in this state. If she actually begged Draco not to do this it would be nice."

"Bruises would be helpful," Blaise added.

Theo watched Weasley and Granger pale at the level admission people would expect them to be bruised. Luna pulled her feet away from his hands and he felt a moment's fear she'd pull herself away from him too but she just turned on the couch so she was nearly in his lap, leaning up against him. He began to twine his fingers through her hair wondering how she'd known he needed to pull strength from her now. Acknowledging that the people on his side, the men he'd been friends with since childhood, would likely be casually abusing the brides they'd selected was hard.

I don't want to be like them, he thought. I don't want to be a hero; I just want to be a decent person. I just want to live a normal, ordinary life without being afraid my father is going to die on some mission for a crazed ruler he practically worships, without being branded, without being expected to terrorize some poor girl into having baby after baby. He closed his eyes and pulled the fragile woman in front of him tightly into his arms, grateful that, unlike the other two, she'd let him hold her, let him comfort her. Grateful, also, that she'd let him take comfort from her, as unfair as it seemed to ask anything of her.

The three of them had spent two days trying to convince these women they weren't going to turn around and brutalize them at the first opportunity and Granger and Weasley were still flinching, still half expecting this to be a ruse. He hoped pretending they were what everyone expected them to be didn't make it worse. Hoped they didn't end up hating Draco and Blaise even more.

"I want new clothes," Luna said, snuggling into him. "I think I'm ready to move away from pleated skirts. I want turbans."

"Turbans?" he asked, glad to move away from the topic of how he'd have to pretend to be this thing he despised in order to chaperone a shopping trip.

"With feathers," she agreed. "And those don't go well with school girl skirts so I think new clothes as well."

Draco moved a piece on the chessboard and didn't even react as Blaise captured it.

"So we basically act like you've been terrorizing us?" Ginny sounded resigned.

"If you're so awful why are you buying us clothes and sparkly things?" Luna asked and Theo sighed.

"Damned if I know," he admitted. "Any suggestions?"

"Rings are a conventional enough marriage symbol." Hermione shrugged. "If anyone asks you're making us wear a symbol of your wealth and power."

"And the clothes?" Draco asked.

"Just practical. Everything we had was bloodstained." Hermione sighed.

"We should pick up some lingerie," Theo mused, thinking about what his classmates were probably shopping for. "Something that..."

"No," Ginny said, her voice flat. "I can't manage that."

Theo and Blaise exchanged quick looks. "Only if we need to," Blaise said at last. "But if we need to convince anyone watching we're a bunch of sex obsessed boys with new toys we want to dress up then we do it."

"It's a reason we'd be there instead of here, ravishing you," Theo said as gently as he could and tried not to despise himself as Ginny Weasley began to cry again.

. . . . . . . . . .

_**A/N – Thank you for all your lovely feedback. I appreciate it so much. **_

_**I am, after all, just a rat pushing on my lever over and over again waiting for the food pellet/dopamine hit of your reviews.**_

_**I might also be a tad punchy because I'm trying to figure out tumblr.**_


	8. Chapter 8

"You've gone utterly round the bend," Blaise said, staring at Draco. The three of them had walled themselves up into his room, chasing everyone else out and getting steadily drunker on a bottle of purloined whiskey.

"Why not?" Draco demanded. "Are you telling me you aren't as noble and crap as all those red and gold arseholes?"

"I'm not as bloody suicidal," Blaise countered. "I like being alive. I like it very, very much."

"You want to live under that bastard's rule?" Draco asked, sipping from his cheap cup. "Because I've been dealing with him up close and personal for a while now and I can tell you that he likes power and he likes hurting people and it's going to be survival of the cruelest under him."

"I want Potter to do his fucking job and kill him," Blaise muttered. "Then I want to marry some nice girl and move to one of my mother's more remote houses and never see any of the bad guys _or _the good guys ever again."

"Thanks a lot," Draco muttered.

"You can come visit," Blaise conceded. "You aren't really one of the bad guys." He paused. "Or one of the good ones either."

. . . . . . . . . . .

They started with clothing. Draco hauled Hermione into the shop with his hand around her upper arm and tossed her towards the shop girl. Blaise and Theo led their wives in far more graciously but gave each a shove.

"The dumb tarts didn't have any clothing when we picked them out from the line up at Hogwarts," Draco drawled. "They need everything. Put it all on my account and get them _everything_."

He pulled out a flask of what looked like alcohol and tossed it to Theo who took a swig. "Make sure mine has lots of knickers," he said. "I like to tear them off."

"She probably doesn't know which one's yours," Blaise said with a laugh.

"Mine's the blonde," Theo said.

"Yours is the crazy one," Draco said with a snort. "You!" He waved over another shop girl. "Get us some chairs while we wait."

"Of course," she murmured, obviously terrified of antagonizing the young Death Eaters, and within moments the three men were seated, passing the flask back and forth and watching as the boutique staff frantically tried to create three complete wardrobes as quickly as possible.

. . . . . . . . .

"I'm noble," Theo said, slurring just a little. "But I don't see how marrying some girl I don't know has anything to with that."

"Two things," Draco said, pulling the other man's cup away. "It lets you rescue the damsel in distress of your choice and get one of those Dumbledore's Army bints on our side."

"If I could marry any Hogwarts girl who would I want," Blaise mused dreamily. "That Hannah Abbott in Hufflepuff has glorious tits. And Cho Chang is hot _and_ smart."

"Cho's still crazy after her boyfriend died." Draco said, dismissing the idea. "I can't see you coping well with that."

"I'm a sensitive guy," Blaise objected. "I could be very caring."

"If you wanted hot and smart and part of the DA you'd go for Granger," Theo said, trying to snag his cup back out of Draco's hands. "She's bloody annoying but you can't deny she meets all those criteria. We could flip for who has to take her."

"I'll take Granger," Draco said quickly and, when both Blaise and Theo started to laugh he glared at them. "Assuming she lives, she'd be the best asset we'd have. She knows everything the good guys have been up to and she'll know she needs protection in any world the Dark Lord runs."

"Yeah," said Blaise. "You just go on telling yourself that's why you'll take her."

. . . . . . . . . .

"Show us things that sparkle," Blaise said as Ginny and Hermione and Luna huddled in a little miserable cluster.

One of the older women in the shop started to ask if they were okay until someone hissed at her, "Death Eater brides" and she paled and stumbled quickly out of the store.

"I'd kill myself," another woman said as she eyed the girls. Hermione's eyes flashed and for a moment Draco looked afraid she'd tell the woman exactly where she could shove her opinion.

"Can't keep them in chains all the time," he said, his pleasant voice carrying, "But I want anyone who sees the woman to know she's mine. Come here, darling. Why don't you pick out something shiny that will remind you every time you look at it that you belong to me."

Hermione pulled herself away from her little group and cringed as she approached the counter, trying to pull herself away from the man who was her husband. He slapped her on the arse and she closed her eyes and covered her murderous thoughts with a sad sniffle before looking at the tray of rings the jeweler had put out in front of her. The array pulled an actual gasp out of her and she looked at Malfoy in some shock. "My father shops here for my mother," he drawled. "They know our budget, or lack thereof. Don't be shy, sugar. You're my wife, after all."

She looked back at the selection laid out before her. The rings were beautiful and she touched one of them with the tip of her finger, forgetting for a moment she was trapped. Draco pulled that one out and slipped it on her finger and she watched his face, watched the tension around his eyes soften as he ran his thumb over the back of her hand and looked first at the ring then at her.

"This one?" he asked, his voice quiet, and, not trusting herself, she nodded.

"The lady has a good eye," the jeweler said. "Goblin work, of course."

"Only the best for her," Draco said, still holding her hand.

. . . . . . . . . .

"So we're really doing this?" Theo asked, shaking his head a little. "We're going to go bravely forth and fight the good fight, save the maidens, fight the dragon, all that?"

"Only if Potter doesn't get the job done," Draco said. "And he's supposed to be fated to do it, the fucking tosser."

"Back up plans never hurt," Blaise said.

"I'm going to back up the back up and make an escape route," Theo muttered. "I think this might actually be the dumbest idea you've ever come up with, Draco, and I remember the time you decided to teach yourself to fly without a broom at the age of five."

"If that bastard wins and he really pulls this repopulation plan out of his creepy playbook you're going to have to pick a bride on the spot whether we go on to fight him or not," Draco said. "You might as well pick one who'd be useful if we do decide to do the noble thing."

"Ginny Weasley," Blaise suddenly announced. "I'll take the Weasley girl. She's surely close enough to the good guys' power structure to make you happy, Draco, and she's tough." He took another swallow. "And hot."

"Isn't she dating Potter?" Theo objected.

"Yeah, well, Granger's dating Weasley but I don't see you trying to head Draco off on that one."

. . . . . . . . . .

"Ron!" Hermione hurled herself into his arms and, for the first time all day, began to cry. Draco yanked the curtains closed and leaned against the doorframe.

"Coming here scares the crap out of me," he said. "We've been lucky so far. I know this is why you lot really wanted to venture out instead of just having one of us pick up everything you need, but have your little reunion and say goodbye as fast as you can."

"Don't you tell her what to do," Ron hissed and Hermione put her hand on his arm.

"It's okay," she said, "it really is."

George pulled Ginny into a fierce hug. "Is he treating you okay?"

Theo and Luna settled onto chairs around a small table, heads together, as the others circled around one another.

"It's fine," Ginny said.

"He's not making you…?" Percy looked at Blaise and swallowed hard.

"He hasn't laid a hand on me," Ginny lied, and then smiled. "He sleeps on the floor, Perce. Won't leave me alone for fear some friend of Nott's father will show up but… he's been really great."

"I've missed you so much," Hermione was saying, holding on to Ron. "I'm so glad you survived. I was so afraid you'd been..."

George snorted. "Our precious bloodlines kept us alive. We'll be used as studs for lovely Slytherin girls who can't be allowed to be sullied by anyone who isn't part of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. Daphne Greengrass to be precise."

"What?!" Hermione looked at him.

"Pansy," Ron muttered and she twisted back in his arms to face Ron.

"You have to marry _Pansy Parkinson_?"

"In a big, society wedding no less," he said, flushing. "We're being kept here, like we're in some kind of holding cell, while the big functions get planned."

"So I get a fucking binding ceremony at the edge of a battle field but the pureblood girls get their dream weddings?" Hermione glared at Draco as if this newest insult were also his fault.

"I didn't get any dream wedding," Ginny snapped.

"Wait," Percy said. "They married you all off in _binding ceremonies_?" He sounded horrified.

"Wasn't that binding," Draco muttered and Ron started to laugh.

"Wasn't binding at all," Ginny said, grinning at George. "You think anyone who grew up with you could be tied into a binding vow by a Ministry hack?"

He laughed and picked her up and spun her around. "That's my little sister. This is the best news I've heard since - "

"I might not even be married," she said with a laugh as he set her down. "Hard to check, really. I don't exactly want to march into the Ministry and ask them to check the status of my vows."

"You're taking care of her?" Percy half asked, half insisted as he looked at Blaise, his voice low under the laughter.

"I am," Blaise said. "I will. No matter what."

"Good." Percy said, then sighed. "Wouldn't have expected it of you. Thank you."

"We aren't all Death Eaters," Theo said from the table.

"No," Ron said, his eyes on Draco even as he kept his arms around Hermione. "But some of you are."

. . . . . . . . . . .

"Okay," said Theo. "I'm in. I don't want to be a Death Eater. But who do I pick as my blushing bride? Lavender Brown? One of the Patil twins?"

"How about the Lovegood girl?" Blaise suggested. "She's a bit daft but she's smart and she's pretty enough and she's in tight with the anointed ones."

"Done," Theo said. "Now give me back my cup, Draco, and top it off so we can toast to our future wives and all the fun we're likely to have with them."

. . . . . . . . . . .

They slipped out of the shop, Draco's hand firmly wrapped around Hermione's upper arm again.

"It's an act," Hermione had quietly reassured Ron before they left. "Don't come rushing out to save me. We're safer if anyone who sees us assumes he's treating me like…" She'd gulped and stopped.

"Understood," Ron had said, holding her as tightly as he could. Draco could see him breathing in the woman's scent as if he could memorize her. "I love you, Hermione."

"Goodbye, Ron," she'd whispered and he'd closed his eyes and swallowed hard before looking at Draco over her.

"Do what you have to," he'd said. "Be a better man than you have been, and do what you have to do to keep her safe."

"I will," Draco had said and Ron had nodded and squeezed her one more time before releasing her to her husband's care.

"I hate trusting you, Malfoy," Ron had said, "but you're all I have."

Now, dragging her along the street Draco laughed and said, "Well, that was fun, sweetheart. Rubbing you in the Weasel's face was probably the best part of my day."

"Can we go home," Theo drawled. "I had that shop send the knickers right away and I want to have my little angel here play fashion show for me."

"Absolutely," Draco said and they turned the corner and came face to face with Lucius Malfoy. Hermione, hurrying forward to reach the apparation point, saw him a moment too late and stumbled into him before Draco yanked her back."

"Well," Lucius sneered. "Out for a little stroll with your Mudblood bride, son?"

"Well," Draco said with a shrug, "One can only spend so much time in bed and Theo's needed new knickers. He's a bit of a whirlwind of destruction."

"You're limiting yourself to the bed?" Lucius raised an eyebrow and Draco snorted.

"It was a figure of speech, father."

"I must say," Lucius said, looking Hermione up and down as she glared at him, "I don't care for having her fall into me, or for her expression. Have her apologize."

"Do it," Draco said to her and he narrowed his eyes when he recognized the look on her face she got right before she threw things at him.

. . . . . . . . . .

"To our future brides," Draco said, raising his glass, "may we honor them, cherish them, and protect them from the myriad abuses they'd otherwise suffer at the hands of our loving compatriots."

"All while exploiting their skills and knowledge," Theo added dryly.

. . . . . . . . . .

Draco grabbed her by the hair and yanked her down to her knees and she gasped and looked up at him in shock, then glanced to first Blaise and then Theo. Both had expressions of bored amusement on their faces. She looked frantically around the street, which had become silent as people either watched the confrontation with eager eyes or looked anywhere but at her.

"I think," Draco drawled, "the man asked for an apology."

She was still staring at him as he stood there, with his back to his father, looking down at her as he knelt in the street, his hand still in her hair. When she didn't respond he sighed and let go of her hair and she sagged in relief, thinking that surely he wasn't going to push this, wasn't really going to make her do this, when he suddenly backhanded her and she nearly fell over. When she righted herself, hand at her cheek, he said, voice cold, "Don't assume because I like you feisty in bed I'll tolerate you being disrespectful to your superiors. The man asked for an apology. Give it to him." She blinked through the tears filling her eyes and saw his face for a brief moment fill with naked pleading. "Please," he mouthed and she swallowed hard.

"I… I'm sorry, Mr. Malfoy," she muttered. "I meant no disrespect."

"You can do better than that," Draco said, nudging her with his foot. "Try, 'My husband is trying to teach me manners.'"

"My husband is trying to teach me manners," she repeated, looking down now as her face burned.

"'But I'm just a stupid Mudblood so I learn slowly.'"

She was breathing hard now and she hadn't thought it was possible to hate someone as much as she hated Draco Malfoy at that moment. He nudged her with his foot again, harder this time. "I'm just a stupid Mudblood so I learn slowly," she said, letting herself sound broken. It scared her how easy it was to sound so defeated.

Lucius Malfoy laughed. "Nicely done, Draco," he said. "I was a bit surprised at your choice of a bride but I see you have her well in hand."

"It's just like taming a filly," Draco said, hauling her back to her feet by her hair and then wrapping an arm around her waist. "Isn't it, sweetheart."

"Yes, I suppose," she muttered, looking down.

"I'll let you boys go play," Lucius said with a laugh. "Ah, to be young again."

"Home again, then," Theo said, sounding bored, his hand holding Luna's so tightly he was afraid he might break her bones but more afraid to let go.

Blaise looked back at the joke shop and then at Ginny who was staring at Draco with horror on her face. I told you it was dangerous, he thought as he apparated her away.

. . . . . . . . . .

Draco spent most of the afternoon vomiting everything in his stomach. "Go take care of Granger," Theo had said to Luna. "Blaise and I will handle this."

"She'll understand," Theo said handing Draco another cup of water. "She knows it was an act."

"Does she?" Draco asked, face down in his hands. "I'm not sure I would in her place."

"You did what you had to do," Blaise insisted. "If your father thought for a moment you actually thought of that girl as an equal, much less that you loved her, he'd get suspicious and we'd never get out of here, you'd never get her off to safety away from this nightmare."

"What makes you think – " Draco said, looking up.

"Because I'm not fucking blind," Blaise snapped.

"She'll never trust me now," Draco said, dropping his head back down. "What I did to her, it made _me_ sick."

"Give her a little credit," Theo said. "She's not an idiot. She had to see that stupidly gooey look on your face when you put that damn ring on her hand. She heard you promise that fucking worthless git boyfriend of hers to keep her safe. She knows you were faking it with your father."

"I hit her really hard," Draco said, starting to hyperventilate. "It wasn't exactly faking."

"Just talk to her," Theo finally said with a sigh.

. . . . . . . . . .

Draco was scared to go back to his room, scared to face her. As soon as they'd arrived back at the manor she'd looked at him and said, shaking, "I think I need a shower."

He hadn't seen her since. Of course, he'd spent most of the afternoon sicking up.

When he pushed the door to their suite open she was sitting on the bed, feet folded under her. "I had the elves bring up tea and some cakes. I kind of recall you like sweets," was all she said and he gaped at her.

"You may be the most contrary woman I've ever met," he said, shutting the door very quietly and walking towards her, afraid she'd bolt if he moved too quickly. Afraid he'd shatter. "Explain to me why publicly abusing you results in tea and cakes."

She smiled and then flinched a little and he inhaled sharply when he realized he'd bruised her at the very least. "Shite," he muttered, and crossed the rest of the room to her, brushed his fingers over cheek he'd hit. "I'm so sorry."

"You didn't exactly hold back," she said, putting her hand over his.

"He had to believe it," Draco said and she nodded.

"I know," she said.

"The things I made you say - " he began and she put the fingers of her other hand over his lips.

"I know," she said and he tensed at how understanding she sounded.

"Why haven't you fixed this," he demanded, brushing his fingers over her cheek, hating how harsh he sounded.

"I thought you might want to have the healing of it," she said and when he looked at her she shrugged. "I thought it would help you."

"Granger," he said, helplessly, then, "Hermione…" and she stopped him again.

"This is hell," she said. "We're in hell. I just didn't realize until today that you were… that you were more in the way of another lost soul than a devil. That…," she swallowed. "Thank you for the clothes and the ring and for finding a way for me to see Ron, to say goodbye. It was worth it, even if…"

"Do you think we could be friends," he asked, watching her face and she smiled again. It was a little smile but it was there and he traced the shape of it with his eyes.

"We can try?" she asked and he closed his eyes and swallowed hard. Benediction, he thought. Grace. Not something you can earn, something you get even though you can never, ever deserve it. He opened his eyes and looked at her again.

"Let me take care of your cheek and then we can find out if the Nott elves are any good at cake," he suggested.

. . . . . . . . . .

_**A/N – Thank you for all your lovely words and thoughts. You know I appreciate them! **_


	9. Chapter 9

"Blaise," Theo cornered his friend in the hall and said, "I have to ask you a question about women."

"The jumper never makes them look fat," Blaise said. "Trust me on this one."

"Huh?"

"Never mind. What is it?"

"How many pairs of knickers is it normal for a girl to have?"

"What?" Blaise tried to contain his laughter but it started to sneak out anyway. "Why do you care?"

"I'm an only child," Theo muttered, "and my mum died a long time ago. I don't have a good idea of what's normal."

"Well, you've met my mother. I doubt you can call her 'normal' so I might not be your best reference point."

"How many knickers," Theo asked again, and Blaise sighed.

"I don't know. Ten? Twenty? Thirty pairs? Why do you care? Did that shop forget to send her some?"

"The owls have been coming for hours. I stopped counting at 300 pairs," Theo muttered and, with that, Blaise couldn't rein in the laughter any more.

"I guess," he gasped out, "when you told them you liked to tear her knickers off they took that pretty seriously."

Theo tried not to smile but Blaise's humor caught him. "I guess they assumed I was a sex fiend?"

"A fiend, anyways," Blaise said, sobering up. They both looked at each other and Theo mustered a grim smile.

"That's what we all are, isn't it? Fiendish Death Eaters going to town with our Death Eater brides."

"We'll be out of here soon," Blaise said. "Just as soon as Draco and Hermione can figure out how to get him…"

"That fucking Mark."

"We'll be gone soon."

. . . . . . . . . .

"Are you okay," Theo asked, brushing Luna's hair out of her face. "After today, I mean?"

"Draco's a good actor," she said, considering his question. "Better than I would have thought. If I hadn't known, I would have believed him."

"If his father hadn't believed him we might not have been able to get out of here together," Theo said, his voice quiet.

"He flubbed it a bit in the jewelry shop," Luna said and Theo laughed.

"That he did."

She sighed. "Would you have done it? Pushed me down and hit me like that?"

Theo looked at her levelly for a few moments before he nodded. "If I had to, but I doubt I would. It's different for you, different rules despite the war. She's… she's Potter's Mudblood friend. Even touching her is supposed to be off limits. To be able to pull her out of there, to keep her safely out of there, Draco has to convince everyone he's reveling in humiliating her, in rubbing her nose over and over again in the fact she can't escape him. If his father thought he actually cared about her? Game over."

"How is it different," Luna leaned into him on their bed and he wrapped his arms around her and sighed, wondered why she had to ask this.

"You're pureblood," he said finally. "Whatever else you were, whatever side you were on, you're an acceptable bride, an acceptable lineage. No one would expect me to just kill you off when I'm tired of playing with you, you know? If we stayed – and we're not – you'd be… you'd be my wife. People would be polite to you. You'd be the mother of the next generation of my House. Even my father would… it's not the same for you as it is for her."

"Oh." It was a sad, quiet 'oh' and Theo felt himself wither a bit next to her.

"I don't think that way," he muttered. "I don't care about the… I mean, I care about my _House_. But I don't think… that you're a pureblood doesn't matter. Not to me."

"You're giving up your House to escape with me," Luna said, a slight question in her voice.

"I am _not_," he said, his voice low and fierce. "I am still the heir to the House of Nott. No one can take that away from me. Not the Dark Lord, not my father, _no one_. It's not this manor, it's not… it's _me._ If you have a child he'd be the heir after me even if we're living in a hut in the mountains somewhere." He tried to force back his emotions. "It wasn't always like this, Luna. The House of Nott wasn't always dark magic and death cults." He stopped and swallowed. "It wasn't always like this," he said again, more quietly.

"Tell me what it was," she said, her hand on his and he looked down at her, leaning on him with that fair hair nearly glowing and he smiled.

He slipped out from under her, extinguished the lights and beckoned her to the window, pushed it open. "Nott. Night," he said. "Look out and tell me what you see."

Luna joined him and stood, silently, looking out. A moth flew by and Theo held out his hand and the tiny creature settled on his finger for a moment before taking off again. A nightingale called and he watched her smile with delight. "There are birds that only sing at night," he said very softly. "There are flowers that only bloom at night. There's a whole world that emerges only when the sun is stabled again." He paused, then added, "the moon shines most brightly in the night."

She turned to face him, standing so very close, and he caught his breath. She stood there, pressing her toes into the floor, pushing herself higher until she brushed her lips across his and he groaned and pulled her into his arms.

"Luna," he said.

She rested her cheek against him and she said, "I like the night. I always have."

"It's not evil," he said, his voice low. "Darkness isn't evil, no matter what people have tried to turn it into."

"I know," she said.

"I'm not like them," he whispered.

"I know," she said, and she reached up and kissed him again and this time he kissed her back, tasting first her lips then her tentatively opened mouth. She was his, he thought, this bright shining creature was meant for him, had always been meant for him. His Luna. Her night. His moon. Her gift.

A gift. "I didn't get you a ring," he murmured, pulling away from her, pulling his house crest off his hand. "It's too dangerous to go back. It was stupid to go once."

She held her hand out and he slipped the ring on her finger, watching it magically size itself to her. "I've worn that every day since I was twelve," he confessed and she reached her fingers to his hand and felt the worn band of skin around his finger that gave proof to his claim.

"Thank you," she said, then, "Theo." He kissed her again, her lips, her skin, her jaw, her neck and he realized he was standing there holding this woman and crying against her, that she probably thought he was… but no. This woman - this one brilliant, daft girl -would never think he was... He pulled her over to their bed and she said, again, "Theo" and "I don't…"

"Just kissing," he promised her. "Just…"

"I've never…" she said, her eyes on his face in the dim room and he nodded.

"I know," he said, though how it was possible this amazing, beautiful girl hadn't been utterly besieged he didn't understand. He didn't want to see the same stunned, self-loathing look on her face he saw on Ginny's though, and despite a burning, aching desire to take her then and there, he just said, "Kissing, love. Just kissing. Teach me how to kiss you."

So she did, and he paid attention in the moonlit darkness of their room.

. . . . . . . . . .

"Are you okay," Blaise asked, sitting as far from Ginny as he could while still being perched on the same bed. "After today, I mean?"

She's changed into some of the pajamas she'd bought and the strap of the tank top had slipped down her shoulder. She kept hiking it back up as she brushed her hair only to have it fall back again. He wanted to shelter her from everything that had happened, wished he could go back and untwine her arms from his neck that first night and tell her he'd see her after she'd showered, that he'd tuck her into bed and they could talk in the morning. Instead, knowing everything was broken, knowing nothing was fixable, he sat with her in this odd intimacy watching her, worrying about her.

When she hitched the errant strap up again he said, "Do you want me to do that?" When she tensed he said, "Brush your hair, I mean."

She hesitated but she held the brush out to him and he moved to sit behind her, careful not to touch her, and began slowly running the brush through her hair, one stroke at a time. She hadn't answered him about whether she was okay and he pressed again. "Did Draco… the thing with Granger… are you okay?"

"You mean the thing where I saw my best friend hauled around by her hair, where he hit her and then made her say awful things to his father?"

"Yeah," Blaise said. "That."

Ginny was holding herself so tightly, so very tightly, and he knew she was trying not to cry. "That's the world now, isn't it?" she asked.

"In Britain, yes," he admitted.

"That's not okay," she said and, his hand never faltering as he slid the brush through her hair he said, "No, it's not."

"Why are you different? Why are all of you different?"

Blaise sighed. He'd asked himself this so many times. Why had they decided this was something to flee when everyone else, even people who he _knew_ didn't really approve of the Dark Lord, were just keeping their heads down. "I think some of it's privilege," he said quietly. "We have the resources to get out. Not many people do."

"That's not all."

He laughed at that, his hand still steady. "A lot of it's Draco. He wanted to get Granger out, wanted it enough to concoct some noble scheme in his head to tell himself it wasn't just about getting the girl he wanted when she couldn't say no."

"And the rest?"

"It's _wrong_," he finally said. "This is _insane_. Our culture has lost its collective mind and… I've studied history. Not many wizards do, you know. Goblin wars here. Edgar the Eager over there. But I… cultures go crazy and start talking about traditions and order and they find a group to hate and pretty soon you're living in an armed camp and your children are marching in the street and turning you over to the secret police. And people don't leave when they can because it just seems like it can't get that bad."

"Do you really think – ?"

"Yes." He said it flatly. "I told my mother to get out of Britain almost a year ago. She didn't listen but I tried."

"So you saved me." Her voice was quiet but he could hear a tiny note of wonder in it. "You pulled me out of there and promised Percy you'd take care of me."

"I've been trying," he said, setting the brush down and tentatively putting his hands on her shoulders. When she didn't flinch away from him he began rubbing, working out some of the tension she'd been carrying.

"You've been great," she said, her voice quiet. "Thank you for taking me to see them. I… I didn't realize how dangerous it was until… Lucius Malfoy…and Hermione crying in the street and you and Theo were watching her like she was some kind of… but I could feel how you were coiled, just waiting to…." She stopped and inhaled and then just said, "I didn't realize."

"It seems unthinkable," he admitted.

"I don't love you," she said.

"I know." He didn't let himself react to her words. It wasn't like he loved her either; it didn't mean he wouldn't honor the commitment he'd made to her, the promise he'd made her brother. It was still a bit of an unpleasant shock to hear her say it so bluntly.

"I think I can honor you, though," her voice was low. "I think I can trust you."

He nodded, even though she couldn't see him.

"I like the ring," she said and held her hand out and he laughed as she admired the stone on her hand. Granger had gone for delicate, beautiful work. His bride had picked out a rock that could take your eye out.

"Well," he said, "all the British accounts are going to be inaccessible once we flee so we might as well spend as much as we can." He scooted a little closer to her and she took the invitation to lean back into him and he could feel himself relaxing a little. Whatever else had happened today – and there had been some moments of real horror – at least she'd come to some kind of peace with herself about their first night together.

"What's Daphne Greengrass like," she asked and when he made a questioning noise she added, "George said he's got to marry her. What's she like?"

"She's… it depends who she's around," Blaise said. "With close friends she's loud and opinionated and clever and funny. With people she doesn't know well she's almost painfully shy." He snorted. "The damn Dark Lord probably thinks she's a model little meek pureblood girl because I'm sure she's never unwound around him."

"I hope she makes him happy," Ginny said, a little wistfully. "I wish…"

"You'll probably never see him again," Blaise said, as gently as he could.

"I still wish," she murmured and, feeling her let herself lean against him Blaise stroked her hair.

"I do too," he said. "For your sake, I do too. But – "

"Can we be quiet now?" she asked and he wrapped his arms around her and, when she didn't cringe or shove them away, he tightened them and they sat in silence until he tucked her into the covers and got ready to sleep on the floor again.

"I… you don't have to do that," she said and he stopped transfiguring the rug into an only mostly awful mattress and asked, "are you sure?"

He was careful not to touch her all night, though, and she never turned towards him.

. . . . . . . . . .

**A/N – Thank you, lovely people, for continuing to read along. **


	10. Chapter 10

When Blaise opened his eyes Ginny was staring at him. It was somewhat disconcerting. "Hey," he said, his voice a little strained.

"I loved Harry," she said and he wondered what god he'd managed to offend that he'd ended up married to a beautiful woman, that she was in his bed, and that the first thing she said to him that morning was that she loved another man.

"I didn't know him well," Blaise said, trying to be honest, "but he seemed, well, heroic."

Ginny smiled, a slightly sad smile. "I guess. That's what I thought at first. I mean, I loved him from the time I was ten. He was this amazing, unknowable figure, a hero, and I was this dorky little girl in hand-me-down robes. He saved my life, you know, when I was eleven."

"I didn't," Blaise said, watching her. "Know that, I mean."

She nodded. "He did. When I was possessed by Tom. Tom Riddle. Voldemort." Blaise flinched when she said the name. "He saved my life and, well, imagine having your childhood crush actually save you."

Blaise felt whatever hopes he'd clung to that maybe, somehow, someday, this girl would turn to him die. How could he compete with a dead hero she'd loved since she was a little girl, one who'd saved her life? He couldn't. No one could.

She was still talking. "I thought, for a long time, that he was a hero. Eventually I realized that he wasn't."

"He was," Blaise said softly but she shook her head.

"No, he was a scared boy who didn't know what he was doing, who stumbled forward trying to do the best he could. I guess that's heroism, really." She shrugged. "It's not what I thought it was at ten, that's for sure. It's a lot less poetic. Not so much story books and glory and a lot more being scared and confused."

"I'm taking a shower." Blaise pushed himself out of the bed and crossed the room. This was much too much for so early in the day. He needed coffee before facing his wife singing the praises of her dead, heroic boyfriend.

Ginny said, "It's what you are," and he stopped.

"What?" he asked.

"A hero," she said, watching him, pushing her red hair out of her face with an impatient gesture. "Someone doing the best he can to do the right thing when he's not even sure what that is."

"I'm glad you think so," he said. "But you're wrong. I'm just a selfish, privileged boy who doesn't want to be a Death Eater."

He closed the door behind him and sagged against the wood. How much longer until they could get out of here?

. . . . . . . . . .

"Another glorious morning together," Draco said by way of greeting from his seat when Blaise and Ginny joined everyone at breakfast. Hermione had her head down over a book she'd convinced the library to release, her hair tucked up in an unruly pile. She didn't even look up at him, though she glanced quickly at Ginny and smiled before returning to her book.

"Where are Theo and Luna?" Ginny asked and at that Hermione snorted.

"They're arguing with the house elves."

"What?" Blaise looked at Draco who shrugged.

"Apparently there is some disagreement about whether the elves will stay here, in the main Nott manor, or follow Theo and Luna wherever they go. They don't seem to care for Theo's father that much – "

"I wonder why," Hermione muttered.

" – but Luna's trying to convince them they should stay here anyway."

"Aren't you the elf rights girl?" Blaise asked Hermione who slouched lower in her seat and didn't look up.

"Don't tease," Draco said and Blaise looked at his friend in astonishment.

"Didn't you spent months making me listen to you mock that spew thing? Months. And now you tell me not to tease?"

"S.P.E.W.," Hermione muttered, still not looking up.

"And now we're here and not at school and - "

"And you got the girl and don't want her to start throwing things at you again?" Blaise drawled, piling elf-made baked goods on his plate. "Someone explain to me why we _wouldn't_ want elves to follow us into exile."

"Theo's afraid they'll inadvertently lead his father to us," Hermione said and Blaise sighed as he looked over the breakfast spread.

"I suppose that makes sense." But just as he acknowledged, with some regret, that having the Nott elves follow them might not be the best idea, the elves themselves scuttled that idea.

"I give up," Theo slouched out of the house and sank into a seat. "Have you ever tried arguing with an elf? They sob and wail and praise you and threaten to slam their fingers in doors and then they just go on to do whatever it was they wanted to do anyway."

Hermione smothered a laugh.

"So," Blaise tried not to look utterly hopeful. "Does this mean we'll be eating like this in exile too?"

"And having our laundry done and never having to scrub a toilet, yes." Theo looked at Blaise and tried not to grin. "Hey, I tried but I'm afraid your luxurious existence won't be coming to an end any time soon. We'll just move from this place to a smaller estate and still be waited on hand and foot and still have beautiful wives dancing attendance on our every whim."

"Dancing attendance? Delusional much?" Hermione asked, setting her book aside and picking up her cup of tea.

"Luna has managed to convince some of the elves to stay here," he admitted, "but the place is smaller so they'd be bored anyway."

"How many elves work here," Hermione asked and Theo shrugged.

"I have no idea." He could she her getting riled, a kind of righteous ire that didn't bode well, and he quickly held a hand out. "They come and go and some of them don't like interacting with humans so they don't. Fairies are… tricky. And brownies are fairies. They… for all I know half the Seelie court is in the basement. I don't ask them and they don't tell me and it's safer for everyone that way."

"I wish the Seelie court would have decided to take out Volde – "

Blaise cut off Ginny's mutter with a quick, "Don't say it."

Both women looked at him, startled.

"Don't say his name." He flushed. "It seems like bad luck, like we'd attract his attention. The Taboo, you know? Magic's weird. _ His_ magic is weird. I'd rather not risk it."

Hermione picked her book back up again. "Well, we're going to attract his attention in a big way when we sever the Mark. We'd better be prepared to cut and run as fast as we can."

Theo looked at her, a long, steady gaze that finally caught her attention and she looked up from the pages of the text in her hand. "Do you have any plans on how to do that?" he asked and she sighed but leaned forward.

"I think we should have everything out of here and at this place you've got set up, clothes, food, elves, whatever." Theo nodded and waited for her to go on. "I think everyone should be out of here, and I do mean everyone, except me and him and maybe one more person to help transport him. When we do it – sever the Mark – I… I don't quite know what's going to happen. Maybe nothing. Maybe he's start seizing. Maybe he'll drop dead. I just – "

"I doubt I'll drop dead," Draco interrupted her.

"We should just be prepared for anything," she said. "This place of yours, Theo, does it have a good stock of medicines?"

He tried to remember and then sighed. "Probably not, not for what you're talking about. What do you need?"

"Everything," she admitted. "Who's the best brewer?"

"Probably you," he said with a snort but she shook her head.

"If we want to get out of here in any kind of timely manner Draco and I need to be working on – "

"Draco?" Theo said, eyebrows going up. "You two are on a first name basis now, I see."

"Shut up, Theo," Draco muttered.

"_Anyway_," Hermione said, flushing a little, "we need to be working on this spell to cut him loose. Someone else needs to do the brewing."

"I'll do it," Theo said, still smirking at her. "Standard infirmary supply stuff?"

"I'll make a list," she muttered.

"I can work with Luna to coordinate getting all our stuff out of here," Ginny volunteered. "I mean, I assume the elves listen to her what with being a Nott and all."

"That'd be great," Hermione said. "_Draco_ and I will work on the spell, you two get everything moved to this hidey hole, Theo'll stock us up on potions to try to keep Death Eater boy here alive after his sudden retirement."

"I'll eat the scones," Blaise said, helping himself to another one, hiding his relief they were on their way to getting out, to getting someplace no dark lord or his minions could find them.

. . . . . . . . .

Time seemed to speed up once they'd made the decision to go, once there was an actual plan, a list of things that had to be accomplished before they could escape. Theo began to worry his father wouldn't really stay away for the whole of their 'honeymoon' and his anxiety was a contagion that infected the rest of them and they were all on edge, snapping at one another and then guiltily apologizing.

Medicines were brewed, clothes were moved to the new house, Draco and Hermione refined and refined and refined the severing spell until he finally just screamed at her that it wasn't getting any better, they'd closed every loophole they could, and it was time to just do it.

"I'm afraid," she admitted when he stopped yelling and he stared at her, shocked.

"Of _what_?" he demanded, still riding the adrenaline high his outburst had given him.

"That you'll suffer," she muttered, closing the book. "That it won't work, that you'll die, that I won't be able to… a lot of things, some of them… I'm just tense is all."

"You don't want me to suffer?" he asked, his voice wry but a hint of hope that their tentative friendship might be growing under that.

"Not unless it's at my hands, no," she said, pretending to lob the book in her hand at him.

"Oh, wonderful," he said. "My future nurse wants to me to suffer _at her hands_. That doesn't bode well for my recovery."

She stiffened at that and he wondered if he'd gone too far. "I'll take care of you," she muttered. "I'll do everything I can to get you through whatever this spell does to you and out whole on the other end."

"I know," he said, his voice quiet. "I'm just…"

"_Then_ I'll torment you," she said. She was clearly trying to joke, to leaven the tension his yelling and her own fear had created, and he risked pulling her into a hug. She didn't exactly melt into him but she didn't stand rigid in his embrace either. He counted it as progress.

"It will be okay," he said but she shook her head.

"We can't know that. We're breaking a spell cast by…"

"I know." He moved his hand in small circles on her back and she finally huffed out a laugh.

"Why are you comforting me when you're the one who's going to suffer?"

"I guess I'm just that good a person," he said, an arch tone to his voice and she laughed and pulled away from him.

"Yes, I'm sure that's it. The Death Eater is the good person."

He turned away to tidy up their books so she wouldn't see him flinch. "I think we should do it tonight. There's going to be a Revel at the Manor and he might be distracted."

"A...?" Her voice shook as she realized what that meant. "How do you know?"

"My father owled me an invitation."

The silence that greeted that announcement was chilling. Finally Hermione asked, "Were you supposed to bring me?"

Draco swallowed hard before whispering, "Yes."

"Oh." Hermione stood and, even with his back still to her he could feel how she was holding herself rigidly, how she'd managed, somehow, to put out of her mind her own role in the new world order in the flurry of their research and escape preparations. When she spoke again her voice was clenched and nervous. "I assume you sent our regrets."

Draco kept his voice as light as he could, still pretending to straighten the books on the table. "I thought we might prefer to stay in."

"Yes, rather." He turned and saw how pale she was. He reached out a hand toward her but she backed away. "I think I'll go check with Luna, see if everything is ready for us to go. We can do this tonight, if you're ready. A good idea, to time it with a Revel." And then she fled the library, fled him, fled the reminder she'd gone from brightest student in their year, best friends with the would-be savior of their world, to his wife. To an entertainment. A victim.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

**A/N – Thank you for continuing to read along and share your thoughts with me. I appreciate it more than I can say.**


	11. Chapter 11 - The Dark Mark

Everyone was out except for Hermione, Draco, and Theo, who had stayed behind with the last of the portkeys in case Draco collapsed and Hermione couldn't transport him alone.

"Are we ready to do this," Hermione asked, nerves evident in her voice. Draco nodded and began rolling his sleeve up.

"Before we begin," he said, a slight smirk dancing across his lips, "there's something I want to tell you. When we're all done and safely on the other side remind me."

Hermione, who'd already had her wand half-raised, lowered her arm and looked at him. "Just tell me now."

"Nope." He grinned, a slightly evil little grin. "I want your curiosity to make sure you keep me alive to tell you."

Hermione turned to Theo. "Has he always been this much of a prick?"

Theo shrugged, hiding his own grin. "Sorry to tell you this, but yes."

"Fine." She turned back to Draco and said, "Are you ready?"

He swallowed hard, a bit of the bravado leaking out, and nodded. "Let's do it."

Theo watched them start the spell work. They were chanting in unison and the air in the room began to feel heavy, oppressive, the way the world did before a thunderstorm. The Mark itself began to glow and he could almost, but not quite, see a black ooze that leaked from it and dribbled down to the floor where it puddled and hissed.

Theo had a feeling that poking that not-quite-there puddle would be a very bad idea.

Draco staggered and fell down with an audible thump that made Theo wince in sympathy for his knees but he kept casting and they were both chanting and Theo wasn't sure he could breath and then suddenly it was over and light and hope and air and salvation rushed back into the vacuum the room had become and Hermione snapped, "Grab him and let's get out of here," and they were sucked away through the portkey into the foyer of their new home.

"Get him a bowl," Hermione shouted and Luna was shoving a bowl under Draco's mouth and he was retching and heaving and emptying out all the contents of his stomach until he was spitting out bile and blood and Theo stepped back in horror and fear.

Ginny, not nearly as frozen by the sight of Draco Malfoy suffering miserably, grabbed the nearly full bowl and handed Luna another one. "Take this," she said, shoving it at Blaise, "get it beyond the wards and burn it." Then she was wiping Draco's mouth and holding a glass of water up to his lips.

He sipped, barely conscious, then spit the water out before drinking more and swallowing.

"To bed," Hermione ordered, and the three women were half carrying, half dragging him towards the sickroom until, shaking off his stupor, Theo picked his friend up and carried him.

He didn't start to seize until they had him in the bed.

"Potions, Theo," Hermione snapped. "Where are they?" But Luna already had an anti-seizure flask in her hand, unstoppered, and was holding it to the man's lips as Hermione held his head steady.

The fever came next, and with it the pain, pain that had almost mercifully held off until that point. Even with the anti-febrile potions Draco shook in the bed. Even with the pain potions his face was screwed up against the misery.

"Now what?" Theo whispered, watching him.

"Now we wait," Hermione said, sitting in the chair at the side of the bed. "Go. Sleep. I'll call you if I need you." Theo was about to protest but, after looking at her face, he nodded and slipped from the room. Luna stoked Hermione's hair before leaving. Ginny sagged against Blaise whose eyes were wide as he watched the fate he'd barely escaped playing out in front of him.

"Generally the Death Eater retirement policy is death," he said to Ginny, grey and shaking himself in their room. "We're trying to cheat death." She nodded and let him shudder in her arms, running her hands over his shoulders and back as she tried to comfort him.

"I know now why people want to die," Draco whispered, hours later.

"Fortunately for me," Hermione said, wiping his forehead with a damp cloth, "you're too bloody arrogant to let yourself just take the easy way out."

"I want to," he said, catching her hand. "I really want to."

"You can have more pain potion," she said, squeezing his hand and then letting him to go unstopper another flask.

"It doesn't help," he said, turning away from her. But she put her hand on his cheek and gently rotated him back to face her and held the flask to his mouth.

"Drink it for me, then," she said.

"Manipulative," he said. "Should have been in Slytherin."

"Mmmm," she said, tipping the flask up and watching him swallow. "You shouldn't insult your nurse. She might slip you a sleeping draught."

"You promised me no sleeping potions," he muttered, eyes already fluttering shut. "You _bitch_."

"You need it," she said. "Sleep is the best healer."

"He'll get me," Draco's voice was already thick. "If I'm 'sleep he'll get me, 'ione."

"I won't leave your side," she said, taking his hand in hers. "I'll keep you safe."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

"You promised about the potions too." His voice was so faint she could barely hear him and she knew he was asleep by the time she responded.

"I won't let you die, Draco. I won't let him have you."

. . . . . . . . . .

When Draco woke he braced himself against pain that didn't come. Not quite believing the worst was over he pulled open his eyes and saw the witch, his wife, slumped in a chair at his bedside.

"Why're you still here?" he asked, his voice abrasive in the dark room.

She rubbed at her face. "I promised I'd stay," she said. "Promised I'd see you through this."

"You're exhausted," he said and she shrugged.

'I promised," she said again.

"How drugged am I?"

She laughed at that. "A lot, probably. I've been waking you up just enough to pour potions down your throat."

"So the pain's not really gone?" He sounded defeated. He was too tired to hide it from her. Defeated, defeated, defeated.

"It will be," she said, leaning over to brush some hair out of his face. "It's only been a little while. We knew it would hurt."

"I'm scared," he said, closing his eyes again. "What if – "

"Shh." She put her finger over his lips. "Everything will be okay. I'll keep you safe. I will."

"You need to rest," he said, forcing his eyes open again. "Get Theo to sit with me or something. Go sleep."

"Can't," she said with a shake of her head. "I promised I'd stay."

"Stubborn, bossy witch," he said and she ran her thumb along his jaw.

"Be careful, Malfoy," she said, sounding amused. "You almost made that sound like a compliment. I might start to think you don't hate me if you keep this up."

"Don't flatter yourself," he said. "You're a tool, Granger."

Her smile faltered and then disappeared entirely. "Yes. Well." She leaned back and pulled her hand away from him. "I said I'd get you through this and I will, even if we aren't apparently friends anymore."

"Sorry," he muttered. "I'm an arse. I didn't mean that. Just scared and lashing out. I'm sorry. I'm _sorry_."

She didn't say anything to that, just settled back into the chair, sagging under her own fatigue. He looked at her in the dim room. Her hair seemed flatter, as lank as he'd ever seen it, and there were bags under her eyes. He wasn't sure how long he'd been drugged into sleep but it was long enough she was starting to collapse under the strain. So much for honoring and cherishing, he thought to himself. Fuck, he was bad at this.

"Lie down," he said after a bit, trying, somehow, to be better at this partner thing. At her incredulous look he muttered, "Look, I'm a jerk. I really shouldn't have said that. You're not… we're… you're so tired you're going to fall apart, you stupid… just lie down, okay. The bed is big enough."

She didn't move, didn't say anything, and he finally added, "If you don't, I'll get up and try to drag you into the bed and the strain of that will probably…"

"Even drugged you're a manipulative bastard," she said, but the fond tone was back in her voice and he could feel himself relax a bit.

"Please," he added and when she didn't move he said it again. "Please, Granger…"

When she pulled herself up, walked around the bed and tucked herself in, falling into apparent sleep almost as soon as she lay down, he murmured, "I win."

She wasn't all the way out, though, because she muttered, "I heard that," even as he could feel her hand reach out to touch his back. She didn't leave, though, and as he fell back into that drugged sleep he thought again, "I win."

. . . . . . . . . .

When he woke again he could feel someone curled against his back and it took him a moment to realize it was Granger, her hair rubbing against his bare skin.

He shifted carefully to face her, spotting the sweat soaked shirt someone had stripped from him at some point and left lying on the floor as he moved. The early morning light had lightened the room enough he could see how she still had on the same clothes she'd worn when they'd started casting.

That, he thought, had really hurt.

It still hurt, though now it was more of a dull ache, a burning in his throat from the acid he's thrown up, a rib he might have bruised in his convulsions throbbing with every breath. It didn't feel like his very soul was trying to kill him anymore.

She burrowed against him, pushing her feet – her very, _very_ cold feet – against his calves as though he were her own personal heater. He was torn between the urge to slip away and shower and to stay in the bed and hold onto her, something she'd surely never let him do if she were really awake; for all they'd slept in the same bed for weeks now she'd always hovered at the very edge of the mattress, accepting the need to stay in the same room to conserve warding, willing to share the bed, but only just, too proud to admit he scared her still.

Eventually the smell of his own, stale sweat made him decide to try for the shower and he sat up. It was amazing how much, he thought, it could hurt to sit up. Still, he did it and then stood and then walked to the door. He had the door open before he almost collapsed and, braced against the door frame, he saw Blaise and Theo both drop their books and hurry towards him. Theo grabbed him and said, "You're up."

"Shite." Draco said. "That's why I'm so tall. I hadn't realized."

"Arsehole," Blaise said.

"I need a shower," Draco said.

"Do you think you can?" Theo asked, taking most of his weight.

"Where's Hermione?" Ginny was there too and he looked at her and grimaced, then tipped his head toward the room. The girl disappeared. Off to make sure he hadn't killed her friend in the night, he thought with grim humor.

"I think I have to," Draco muttered. "I can't stand myself."

Theo nodded. "I'll help you get there, mate, but if you can't take care – "

"I can," Draco said. "I will."

He did, too, though he sat for much of it and just let the water beat down on him. Theo had sat right outside the open door. "I'm not facing that woman you married if she kept you alive through all that only for me to let you die after keeling over in the shower," he'd said. When he got out someone had found him clean clothes, albeit pajamas, and he sipped into the bottoms with a sigh of relief. He was alive. He was whole. He was free.

He was _clean_.

He hadn't been clean in so long.

He looked at the mark on his arm; the weird way it had always seemed to move when you looked at it out of the corner of your eye only to freeze again when you looked right at it was gone. It was just an ugly tattoo.

"She did it," he whispered, and touched the mark with one finger, very lightly. It was just a tattoo. Just a mark.

Theo snorted when he asked where his own room was. "Your room's that sick room until you can climb the stairs without falling over. You just quit a service that's supposed to be unquittable. You should be dead. That you're up and walking around is a testament to just how obsessed you are with personal hygiene."

The bed had been cleaned up when Theo deposited him back in it: fresh sheets, the sweat soaked shirt was gone, and someone had lined up more potions on the side table. Granger was gone too.

"She's taking a shower of her own," Theo said before he could ask. "You weren't the only one who needed it." Draco looked at the potion the man was handing him and frowned. "Take it," Theo insisted, then sighed. "Once she's clean and we've gotten some food into her I'm sure she'll be back in here at your side. Relax. None of us are going anywhere, not for a while."

"We did it," Draco said, downing the potion, still not quite believing it. "We got out."

"We did," Theo agreed, adding, his voice low, "thanks to you."

Draco shook his head, then stopped because the potion was already making him woozy.

"No," Theo insisted. "It was you, your crazy idea. We'd still be there, hating it, if you hadn't… I mean, the whole resistance idea was fucking stupid but it pushed us to get out and… I owe you, mate."

. . . . . . . .

When he woke again it was afternoon and Granger was curled against him again. This time he wrapped his arms around her and fell back asleep. "I win," he thought as he held her. "I win."

. . . . . . . . . .

She wasn't in the bed when he opened his eyes; she was back in the chair, lamp on the table lit, reading some book.

"Granger," he said, and she looked up. His throat hurt and his voice sounded like a croaking frog. "Can I have some water?"

She put her book down and poured him a fresh glass from a convenient pitcher but when she went to hold it to his mouth he took it from her. "I think I can handle this now."

She nodded and settled back into her chair.

"What are you reading?"

She shrugged. "Muggle poetry."

He nodded as if he had the faintest idea what that was. Muggles wrote poetry. Huh. "Thank you," he said, still holding the glass of water, not bothering to quite specify what he was thanking her for.

"It was your adaptation that made it work," she said.

"You found the spells."

"Teamwork," she said and he smiled.

"We make a good team," he said and there was a bit of pause before he added, "I wouldn't even have thought to try without you. You… thank you."

"I guess that makes us even," she said and he frowned, looking – and feeling – confused. She sighed and put her book down, neatly marking the place with a torn bit of paper. "I never liked you, you know."

He nodded and waited for her to go on. This was leading someplace.

"I didn't hate you the way Harry did - he was almost obsessed – but I didn't exactly like you. You picked on me for years, called me names." She shrugged and he tried not to tighten his grip on the glass. This was where, he supposed, she would say she'd done her bit, gotten him free of the Mark, and now they had to deal with dissolving their marriage. "When you grabbed me in that hall I thought…." She swallowed and he looked away. "Well, you know what I thought you were planning to do. But you saved me from… from a lot of things, I suspect. Things I've probably never even thought about."

"It might not have been that bad," he muttered. "You probably would have ended up that bastard's Cleopatra. The captive symbol of everything he'd defeated, hauled out as a beautiful showcase on special events."

Hermione stared at him, her face incredulous in the lamplight. "Draco. That's… you know that's not what would have happened."

"Might have," he said.

She snorted. "Well, even Cleopatra killed herself."

He couldn't argue with that.

"What were you going to tell me," she asked, and at his confused look she added, "Right before we started the spellwork you told me you had something to tell me but that you weren't going to tell me until I got you through this ordeal. Well, you're through. Now tell me."

He opened his mouth to say it, then closed it again. "No," he said.

"That's not fair," she almost shrieked the words at him and he grinned. "You… brat!" she said and he grinned again.

"Is 'brat' really the best you can do, Granger," he teased.

"I'm trying to be nice," she snapped. "You're still an invalid."

"Come sit with me," he asked, voice quiet, and when she didn't move he added, "Please."

She sighed and moved to sit on the edge of the bed, taking the glass from him and leaning over to set it back on the table. He took her hands and began to rub his thumbs in circles over her palms. "Tell me a secret," he said and she pinched her lips together in an exaggerated frown and shook her head like a stubborn toddler.

"When you won't tell me what you said you would? I don't think so."

"I'll tell you a different one," he offered and he could see the spark of interest catch on her face.

"Deal," she said.

"I think you're beautiful."

The words hung in the air; he could almost see them as if they'd been writ with sparklers. She stared at him and he had to keep from laughing at the expression on her face. Finally she said, "It doesn't count as a secret if you lie, Malfoy."

"I'm not," he said. "And you are."

"Well, whether I am or not isn't the point," she said, and he noticed despite the way she didn't seem to believe him she didn't pull her hands away from his. "You insulted me for years. Buck toothed. Bushy haired. You can't really expect me to fall for 'I think you're beautiful' _now_."

"First, I was a kid. This may be news to you, but fourteen-year-old boys are not exactly known for their skill with girls. Second, openly admiring you was not a good idea in the set I ran in."

She made a 'I have to concede that point' face at him and he laughed.

"It's easier to tease," he said, serious again. "Easier to push people away than to trust them."

"Oh," was all she said.

"You turn," he said and she sighed.

"You've set it up so I have to tell you a good one, Malfoy."

"Slytherin," he said with a shrug.

"Manipulative bastard," she muttered and he pulled her hands to his mouth and brushed his lips across them before lowering them back down.

"But I'm _your_ manipulative bastard," he said and she rolled her eyes.

There was a long stretch of silence and he waited, watching her in the lamplight as she looked down at their hands. Don't push, he thought to himself. Give her space and she'll tell you something real.

"I don't miss Ron," she finally said and he struggled not to react. "I mean, I _miss_ him. I miss everyone. But I miss the friend not the… whatever else we were sort of becoming."

"I thought you two were a couple," Draco said, keeping his voice neutral. "By the end, I mean."

She shook her head. "Friends. We'd just… we'd just started holding hands. Just kissed before the battle."

"You weren't…" he couldn't bring himself to ask, had assumed they'd been intimate for months while they were trekking about the countryside in a tent. He'd been half out of his mind with fear for her when they'd all gone missing, and the part of his mind that hadn't been terrified she'd be caught and killed by some overeager Snatcher had pictured her and Ron together. When they finally had been caught, when the man had offered himself up to be tortured in her place, he'd thought they had to be lovers.

She shook her head. "It was weird, you know. When I woke up last night – after you bloody well bullied me into getting into bed with you – "

"You were exhausted. I was hardly trying to take advantage."

" – I thought about how different it was to lie next to you than it had been to lie next to Ron."

Draco kept himself from tightening his grip on her hands with a self-control that had been learned in the hellish year he'd lived with the Dark Lord.

"There's the obvious physical differences," the witch was going on. "Ron's… bulkier than you are. Broader. You're more like a cat, all sleek lines, to his bear. But it was that you smelled different that really – "

"You'd been camping in the woods. I should hope, even after that fever, I smelled better than a man who hadn't had access to running water for months," Draco muttered.

"Don't be a prat," she said, pulling a hand away from him to poke him in the chest. "I've known Ron for years. I know what he smells like. You smell… like…"

"Like what?"

She lay her hand along his jaw and seemed to study the planes of his face. "Like morning when you first go out before the sun has burned away the dew. Like everything fresh and new. Cold, yes, but…"

It would have been the perfect time to say it, he thought later, but he just sat there, frozen and dumb as she studied him.

. . . . . . . . . .

**A/N – Thank you, as always, for taking the time to read and review this little story. **

**I have a rec: 'Boondocks', a fluffy AU Tomione (no, really) with a mostly OOC Tom Riddle as a southern boy and Hermione Granger as a math major at Columbia by the fabulous Brightki. Smutty in parts, so stay away if you are offended by, or are too young for, such. Archiveofourown dotorg /works/3889144**


	12. Chapter 12

When Ginny and Blaise came down to breakfast they found Luna and Theo already at the table. They'd decided a room that had originally been a porch, then enclosed as a solarium, made the most pleasant place to eat even though with the sun pouring in all that glass they had to open every window to keep it from being uncomfortably warm. Still, the stone floor and all the potted plants made the space feel inviting and safe.

That it was close enough to the sick room to keep an ear on the convalescent didn't hurt.

Today the room was totally silent - not so much as a rustle – and Blaise looked at it nervously. "Did she kill him?"

Theo snorted and released the incantation protecting them all from the yelling.

"– tolerate your heavy-handed, authoritarian bullshite than you have been – "

Theo put the silencing charm up again.

"Ah," said Blaise. "I see. Thank you."

"They've been at it for hours," Theo said. "They woke me up."

"I think Draco might be recovered," Luna said and Theo covered a snort.

Ginny picked the _Prophet_ off the table. "We get the paper?" she asked. "Isn't that… dangerous?"

"There's a pretty elaborate routing system to keep us hidden," Theo said. "It'll always be a little late because of that but I thought being totally cut off from our own country might be dangerous in itself."

"The front page is missing," Ginny observed and Theo shrugged.

"I was looking at it. Do you mind if I finish it first?"

She flushed a bit, the color clear on her fair skin, and mumbled something before taking the middle section. Blaise poured her some tea and put some fruit and a scone on a plate and set it in front of her. She threw him a quick smile as a thank you and he smiled back but she was already folding the paper back and showing Luna a photograph.

"They got married," she said, her voice a little sad. "George and that Daphne girl."

Luna leaned over and read aloud, "'_The lovely Daphne Greengrass was married today to George Weasley. The happy couple plans a month long Grand Tour of the continent before settling in to domestic responsibilities.'"_

"Will George have to become a… you know?" Ginny asked, looking over at the silenced door behind which, presumably, Draco and Hermione were still raging at one another.

Blaise snorted. "Hardly. No one's going to trust a member of the Order of the Phoenix to join the Dark Lord's elite forces. The Greengrasses want him for his pure, Sacred Twenty-Eight blood not his magical talents."

"I doubt he even has a wand anymore," Theo said, his voice very quiet.

"You can't take someone's wand," Ginny objected. "That's like… my wand is…"

"Like a hand," Luna said. Her own wand was shoved through a loose bun, holding her hair in place. She and Ginny exchanged looks. Theo had been careful to never take Luna's wand, to never make her feel that vulnerable. Blaise had had possession of Ginny's, even if only for a few minutes. That even those brief minutes without her magic had terrified her had been clear.

"But he'll be in a house with… and no way to protect himself. He'll be helpless," Ginny objected.

Blaise looked at Ginny very steadily and she swallowed. "She won't hurt him, will she?" she finally whispered.

At that Theo smiled and reassured the woman. "No. Daphne's… she's a bit of a prankster and she has a wicked sense of humor but she's not vicious." Ginny's shoulders sagged a bit at that, in relief Theo assumed. He glanced over at Blaise. They were safe, or as safe as they could hope to be. How many people weren't? How many news stories would they see about these women's friends, married off, having babies, unfortunately deceased?

"He must have been a good boy," Blaise observed with rather grim cheer as he fixed his own plate, "to be allowed to go off with her on a month long vacation. I'm sure he's fine."

"They're probably hoping she comes home pregnant," Theo said. "Ready to settle in to those 'domestic responsibilities'"

"Making Death Eater babies, you mean," Ginny said. "I doubt a woman featured in the society section will exactly be washing pots or darning her husband's socks." She pushed back from the table. "I've lost my appetite. Excuse me."

With a quick look over at Theo, Luna stood up and said, "Let's go into the gardens. There's a nice view of the water and some kind of pagan statue that is doing something I don't think is anatomically possible for anyone who isn't part goat."

Blaise waited for her to be out of earshot before muttering, "She doesn't eat enough."

Theo pulled the front page of the paper out from under his plate and handed it across the table without saying anything. Blaise unfolded it and flinched. Tom Riddle, handsome and charming, was shaking Doloros Umbridge's hand in a large photo placed above the fold. "'_Under-Secretary Umbridge Welcomes New Minister of Magic'_ Is this a fucking joke? He's already Minister?"

Theo shook his head. "No joke."

"That Umbridge bitch." Blaise glowered over at Theo. "I had enough of her during her little Inquisitorial Squad days."

"You joined up eagerly enough," Theo observed and Blaise snorted.

"Wouldn't have done to stand out." He set the paper down. "I bet she loves this. I bet she loves _him_."

Tom Riddle looked up at them, smiling, and Theo shuddered. Blaise grabbed the paper and tossed the page to the stone floor and with a quick _incendio_ set it ablaze. Riddle looked out at them, smiling and Theo could have sworn the man made eye contact and waved at them both right before the fire consumed him.

"We need to check the paper before the girls get it," Theo said. "The society section is going to be bad enough."

"If Ginny had seen that…" Blaise trailed off. "Censorship it is."

Just then the door to the infirmary burst open and Hermione stormed out, her hair crackling in all directions. She looked across the front hall at the two men sitting in the solarium and then, without a word, stomped up the stairs. Draco followed her and looked ready to yell at her but stopped when he saw the amused smirks, clear even from a distance.

"What?" he demanded.

"Come have something to drink," Theo suggested.

"It's much too early for what I want," Draco muttered but he stalked over to join them anyway. "That stupid _witch_."

Theo looked at the pile of ash on the floor. "I don't think it's too early to have a drink at all."

. . . . . . . . . .

Ginny and Blaise leaned on the wall of the terraced garden and looked out at the water. Most the wall around the garden was too high to look over but in this one place you could stand and admire the view.

"Well," Blaise said, "now that Draco's Mark problem seems to be taken care of do you want to try to work on dissolving our vow?"

Ginny looked at him and he shrugged. "Am I wrong in assuming you'd rather not be, well, you know."

"Married?" she asked and he nodded.

She looked back out at the sea and shook her head. "It's just... it's not that you're not... you're very nice...I just never expected - "

"To be hauled off a battle field and married to an almost total stranger?"

"Yeah."

The both stared out in silence after that.

"It seems," Ginny was stammering out her thoughts. "I should want to... I mean, I'm not even really sure if the vow took but... I should want to figure out how to undo it but... I don't."

"You don't?" Blaise gripped the edge of the wall, his fingers digging into the crumbling stucco.

"Well," she shrugged. "There's no need to be hasty, right? Whether we're married or not we're kind of stuck here in this..."

"French chateau?"

"There are worse hidey holes," she admitted.

"Come February you might not like it as much," he said with a grin. "The wind comes down off the mountains and all the tourists and summer people leave."

She put her hand over his and he inhaled. "We're stuck here is the point. We're _safe_ here. He can't get us, can't find us. I don't want to leave."

"Right, safe," Blaise murmured, thinking about the waving photograph.

"And... I've gotten used to you," she admitted.

"Such enthusiasm leaves me nearly breathless," Blaise said.

Ginny hit him on the arm.

"Hey," he said and gave her a little mock shove back. That she didn't flinch away from him but just laughed made his heart leap. She was getting better. Whatever he was to her, she wasn't afraid anymore. She wasn't wholly trapped in self-loathing whenever she saw him.

"I'm not sure I could sleep without you there anymore," she said, her voice very quiet and he wrapped one arm around her. "Maybe we could see if this is something, you know? Before we try to make it go away?"

"I'd like that," he said, resting his cheek against her hair. "I think it could be something. I think we could be something."

They stood for a long time in the spring sunshine listening to the sounds of the little town. Finally Ginny said, "Me too," and he tightened his arm around her.

"This sounds…," she was stumbling over her words again and he squinted at her. "Oh, I feel so stupid," she muttered.

"What is it?" he asked her and she sighed.

"Would you kiss me," she said at last and he brushed her hair out of her face with one hand. "I'd love to," he admitted. "If you'd let me."

He leaned down and brushed his lips across first one cheek, then pecked the tip of her nose, which made her giggle, then he kissed the other cheek.

"You're being silly," she said and he laughed.

"I'm taking my time," he corrected her before putting one hand on either side of her face and lowering his mouth to hers. She slowly wrapped her own arms around him and pulled him more closely against her and parted her lips under his. After the briefest touch of his tongue to hers he pushed back and looked at her. "Is this okay?" he asked. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she said. "This is okay."

"Are you sure?" he asked. "You've had a pretty awful last few weeks."

"Yeah," she agreed and then kissed first one of his cheeks, then the tip of his nose. "But maybe Luna's right."

"What?" Blaise felt a brief moment of fear that this girl planned to become as daft as the blonde who had Theo adoring her.

"That grief and hate and… that's what he wants, you know? Maybe being happy is the best way to poke a stick in that bastard's eye."

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Draco stuck his head through the door of their room warily. He'd planned on clearing out of the sickroom that day, of moving into what might be his room for years to come, but Hermione had been incredibly adamant that he wasn't well enough yet. Really, weirdly aggressively adamant.

That had started the row to end all rows.

The girl who'd slept curled against his back while he'd been healing had disappeared to be replaced by a snarling, pushy, defensive witch who wasn't happy with him, wasn't happy with the house, wasn't, as far as he could tell, happy with the very air she breathed.

He hadn't the faintest idea what he'd done and so far the only good thing he could say about his day was that she hadn't actually thrown anything at him.

She was curled on the bed, her back to the door. "What do you want?" she muttered without moving.

"I was checking on you," he said.

"Well, you've checked. Go away."

"Are you… okay?"

"I'm fine. I'm ducky. I'm swell. I'm a spectacular as any woman trapped in a house she doesn't dare leave for fear of being Snatched while married to a man who hurled insults at her for years could possibly be. Now go away."

He stood and looked at her for a moment and decided the storm had passed.

"You really can be a total bitch when you're upset, you know that?" he said, coming all the way into the room and shutting the door behind him. "Would you tell me what is wrong so I can at least try to stop screwing up in that particular way?" She didn't say anything so he added, "I promise, I'll try to piss you off in some new way so it's not like you won't have any reason not to yell at me or anything. I just don't want to be so gauche as to repeat myself."

She might have muffled a snicker into the pillow at that and, reassured, he sat down on the edge of the bed and reached a hand out to stroke her hair. She stiffened but didn't tell him to cut it out so he didn't until his fingers caught in an errant tangle and he accidentally pulled on it and she swore at him but also turned over and looked at him.

Her face was blotchy and red and he was struck but how he'd never known a girl who let him see her this way before. Pansy had been a pretty crier, able to squeeze out a few delicate tears and to sniffle in a way that would have been vulnerable and appealing if he hadn't been totally sure she'd practiced that trick in the mirror until she could do it at will. He spared a moment to feel sorry for Ron Weasley, who was in no way prepared to handle the wife he'd been assigned.

Not, of course, that he seemed to be doing much better with the one he'd picked.

Weasley, of course, idiot that he was, might not realize he was being played for years.

"What's the matter?" Draco asked as Hermione pulled herself to a seated position and pushed her matted hair out of her face

"This all sucks," she said.

"Could you be more specific? The house? Me? France? Having to flee your home country because a sociopathic dictator took over and wants to kill you?"

"Yeah, that," she said and then, at his expression, reached out and took his hand in hers. "Maybe not you. Definitely not you. But I can't really yell at Vold… the other guy." She sighed and then said, "I'm sorry I was such a – "

"A bitch?" he asked and she nodded.

He squeezed her fingers and they sat together in their lovely bedroom suite in the lovely French chateau they were both afraid to leave. After a while he said, looking away from her, "Are we still friends?" and she laughed and he turned to look at her, shocked, then shocked more when she flung herself into his arms, almost knocking him off the bed, and hugged him.

"Merlin, I hope so," she said. "As bizarre as it is to admit this, you're the best thing about this whole mess. If I had to be cooped up here with just Luna and Theo making calf eyes at one another, I'd go round the bend."

He lay his cheek against her frizzy hair and murmured, "I feel the same way."

. . . . . . . . . .

_**A/N – A bit of gentle fluff for a late spring day. **_

_**SPOILER ALERT: **__After Bodyguard, the lovely sallymact (Go read her Unity if you're looking for some fluff, by the way) wants warnings and, err, this goes to a tempered HEA. No bloodbath for our main 6 characters. No conscious betrayal from any of them. Just the normal tensions of living in a post-war world where the bad guy won._

_**I'm on tumblr and that's a better place to ask questions or chat than PM because their mobile app is better than FF's. It's linked off my profile. Also, you know reviews are like caffeine.**_


	13. Chapter 13

The fighting and the fear had exhausted them both and they sat on the bed, huddled together, not talking, until the fatigue that still snuck up on both of them after the spell they'd wrought, slipped into the room and captured them both. When Draco woke it was dark and he found himself holding onto her; at some point they'd both scootched down the bed so they could lie down and she'd curled against him. He could feel her steady breathing against his chest and, afraid if he woke her she'd spring away from him, he carefully wrapped his arms around her and held on. He knew she'd slept up against him as he was recovering but this was the first time he'd been aware enough to appreciate it.

"I'm sorry," he murmured into her hair, not even sure whether he was apologizing for the fight again or for the way the world had gone mad.

"'snot your fault," she said, pulling back from him just a little but making no effort to extricate herself from this cuddle; she was _cuddling_ with him, he thought, and while she was awake enough to know.

He made a non-committal noise. He wasn't going to get into an argument with her now, especially not one where he fought to blame himself for, well, everything.

"I'm a bitch, remember," she said, her voice a little less sleepy, a little more amused. He rolled onto his back and his breath caught when she pulled herself closer and rested her head against his chest and tucked one leg between his. "You'd reduce anyone who wasn't to shards, though."

"Probably true," he admitted, almost afraid to breath. She was _cuddling_. "You're stuck with me, though."

She slipped one arm across his chest and said, "I don't think so."

"Binding marital vows," he said, teasing her.

She laughed – actually laughed – and he tensed. "If we broke your Mark I'm pretty sure we could break that binding. It probably would be easy."

"Oh."

He started to let her go when she added, "I mean, I don't want to, but if you did…"

"You don't want to?" He didn't think he'd heard her right.

She adjusted her head against him and he thought he heard her sigh. "I've gotten… accustomed to you."

"I…" he stumbled over the words clogging his throat then just said, "Me too."

She propped herself up on her elbow and said, watching his face in the dim light, "I'm here out of choice. Not because you dragged me through that hall. I think that's important. I don't think we can... we can be anything worth being if that's not true. It has to be because we want it."

"Is that what you want?" he asked.

She smiled. "You're an idiot, you know that?"

"You're a right bitch," he said but he felt like the words were something else.

She must have too because that was when she kissed him.

She brushed her nose against his and then her lips were on his, tentative and a little awkwardly and he froze for a moment before he realized that, holy _fuck_, this was happening and he began to kiss her back and her hair was falling down into his face and he lifted one hand and ran it through that wild, bushy, ridiculously wonderful hair as she ran her tongue lightly across the edge of his top lip and he groaned.

"You're trying to kill me," he said and sat up, pulling her onto his lap so she straddled him. "Do you have any idea how much I want you right now?"

She shifted on his lap and he realized that, unless she was the most naïve woman ever, she had a pretty good idea he wanted her. The smirk she was giving him was the most beautiful, wonderful thing he'd ever seen and took his hands and pushed her hair away from her face, trying to tuck it back behind her ears only to have it spring forward again. She laughed. "That's not going to work," she informed him and he realized he was grinning like an idiot as she leaned into him and slipped her tongue into his mouth and she was tasting him with a fervor he'd never expected, never dared hope for, and just when he thought life could not get any better she pulled her mouth off of his and said, right near his ear, "I could be persuaded."

It took him a moment to process that. To realized she'd just… "Are you _sure_?" he asked. "I don't want to – "

"Less talking," she said, "please."

"But you're a…," he fumbled awkwardly around the question of her inexperience. "Aren't you?"

"Yes, and you are really bad at following requests to shut up, aren't you," she muttered and he swallowed hard.

"No more talking," he agreed trying to decide if he wished he were _more_ experienced so he could somehow be confident he could manage this without being totally useless or _less_ experienced so at least it would be his first time too. He tugged off her top and stared at her. Black lace. Even in the dim light of the room he could see it; he hadn't expected that.

"The shop you took us too," she said, sounding embarrassed, "they didn't exactly supply practical sports bras."

"I like it," he said reaching out one finger to touch the fabric. He sat, in some awe, running his hands along her curves over that lace. When he brushed a thumb over her erect nipple she gasped and bit her lip and so he did it again and she squirmed against him and leaned forward to hide her face against his shoulder. He reached around behind her and unhooked the black lace and she helped him shrug it off of her then, since she'd pulled back a bit to help him do that, he lowered his head and put his mouth on one nipple. She made a tiny keening sound and her hands clutched at his hair and he stopped to ask, "This is okay?"

"_Please_ don't make me verbally give you permission for everything," she said and he blew air out onto the dampened nipple and she inhaled sharply and he wondered how much of his hair she'd manage to pull out by the time the night was done.

"Sorry," he muttered as he let go of her, pulled his hair away from her hands, long enough to shuck off his own shirt. She bit her lip as she looked at him and she reached out to run her hands over his skin and he swallowed hard at the feel of her. She'd curled up against him shirtless in his sickbed but this was so very, very different. She let her fingers trace over his ribs, a little more prominent than he'd like right now, and he found himself wishing he looked better, looked healthier, right as she said, "You are so beautiful it almost hurts."

He gaped at her but she wasn't looking at his face but at her fingers as they found the scar that was still there, would always be there, from Potter's sectrumsempra curse. "I told him not to trust that book," she muttered. "I used to watch you, you know," she said and he caught his breath at this unlooked for confession. "I watched you closely enough to know something was wrong sixth year."

"I thought I hid that pretty well," he said covering his shock that she'd watched him, watched him closely enough to have seen what he was going through that awful year.

"You did," she said, pulling his mouth to hers again. "But I could still tell."

He was more aggressive this time, something about knowing she'd watched him without him realizing it emboldened him to kiss her more deeply, to thrust more deeply into her mouth, to pull away and nip at her lips with his teeth. He was aching for her when she suddenly pulled herself off his lap; the loss of her weight felt almost like a slap and he was about to ask what was wrong when he realized she was pulling off the pajama bottoms she'd been in all day and was starting to shimmy out of her matching black lace knickers – it really was too bad he'd never be able to properly thank the shop that had dressed the shaking Death Eater bride he'd thrown onto their floor while pretending to be drunk – when he put his hand over hers. "Stop," he said.

"I… you don't want to anymore?" she looked mortified and he had the sudden fear she thought she'd failed some test or other so he quickly rolled her onto her back and knelt over her.

"I just want to take them off myself," he admitted and he could feel her ease a little at his words.

"Oh," she said. "Oh. I guess that's all right then."

He hooked his fingers over the edge of the fabric and pulled them down, laughing a little as they got tangled around one foot and wouldn't come off before he decided he didn't care, they could stay around that ankle. He stopped for a moment to look at her, naked save for a pair of knickers stubbornly staying at that one foot, watching him with a nervous sort of half smile. He inhaled and lay down next to her, feeling her skin all along his chest and savoring the feel of that much contact. "You're so perfect," he said

"I'm a bitch," she said, her voice shaking a little and he laughed and began kissing along the line of her shoulder, coaxing her back into being as relaxed as she'd been before she'd stripped everything off.

"Perfect for me," he corrected himself and began playing with her nipples again, stopping to feel the full curve of her breast with one hand, then running his fingers back and forth over the erect points and listening to the way each touch made her gasp. He splayed his hand out over her stomach thinking how she was still much too thin after her year on the run, how he'd have to ask the house elves to make richer food for them all, when he heard himself ask, without even meaning to, "Did you really watch me?"

"Yes," she said and he could feel himself start to shake, raw, vulnerable, unnamable emotions grabbing him, and he tried to hide it by moving so he could run his mouth over the curve of her hips and around her navel. "Draco?" The sound of his name in her worried voice pushed him over an emotional cliff and he could feel the tears pushing their way out of his eyes, hanging on his lashes before dropping off onto her skin. "Draco," she said it again and he shuddered. "Are you okay? What did I say?"

He lifted his head up and looked at her in the darkened room and said, his voice hoarse, "I just… you're… I…." He dropped his head down and was leaning up on his hands, hovering over her body with his hair down over his face trying not to spoil what had been this perfect, perfect moment with the wracking sobs that were threatening to spill out of him the same way the individual tears had done. She sat up at that and pulled him into a tight embrace and he was shaking in her arms.

"I'm a fucking arsehole," he muttered. "It's your first time and I'm having a meltdown. I'm so sorry."

"You think I'm going to like you less because you're…?" She sounded exasperated and he laughed a little against her skin, knocked out of his emotional tailspin.

"I don't know why you'd like me at all," he said, "much less enough to do… this."

She leaned forward and kissed him again and he sank into her mouth taking, this time, not arousal but balm from her lips and when she said, "I think you have too many clothes on," she'd calmed him enough that he didn't argue, just slowly pulled off his socks and trousers and pants and lowered her down.

"Are you sure?" he asked one more time.

She was.

Afterward he was nervous and self-conscious in a way he hadn't expected. He'd bloody well _cried_ and his virgin wife had had to coax _him_ into deflowering her.

Was there anything about this entire marriage he'd managed to do right?

She, however, seemed, well, inordinately pleased with herself. She'd yanked that errant pair of knickers off and thrown them to the floor, shoved him under the covers, muttering something about being cold, and now she curled up against him, sticky, sweaty and, as far as he could tell, very, very relaxed. She had a hand flat against his stomach and she finally said, "I think I liked that very much. I think I want to do that again, and soon."

"I'm glad," he said.

"You're kind of amazing," she added and he snorted.

"I had a breakdown. That's hardly amazing."

She tightened the arm she had around him into an awkward half hug and brushed her lips across his shoulder. "You're allowed to be upset. We've had a rough couple of years. We've had a bloody miserable month."

"I just…." He stopped and she waited and he thought, for a moment, of the utter miracle of this. He was in bed with this woman; he could feel her skin pressed against him along the whole line of his body. "I just never thought this would happen," he finally said.

"It has," she said very quietly.

"I used to watch you too," he confessed.

There was a long silence and he wondered what she was thinking as they lay there in the darkness.

"I know," she said at last.

. . . . . . . . .

_**A/N – I DID rate it as M. **_


	14. Chapter 14

Luna knew.

That was the first thing Draco thought when he and Hermione joined the rest of their housemates for breakfast.

Damned if he knew how the dotty witch knew but she looked at Hermione and smiled and said, "It's a lovely day today," and Hermione smiled back and took a scone and said, "Isn't it though?" and he had that trapped feeling he'd had when girls at school had looked and him and then put their heads together and giggled.

Blaise looked at him and raised his eyebrows and smirked at he slurped from a cup of what was probably coffee and Draco began to wonder if he had 'I shagged Hermione Granger' tattooed on his face.

He asked Theo about it later and the man laughed – actually laughed – at him. "We sat downstairs, mate, and placed bets on whether you two would actually go through with it last night. I owe Blaise five galleons, the bastard."

At Draco's glare the man would just laugh. "You have the dumbest grin on your face. For a Slytherin you're utterly transparent, at least when you're happy. And she looked like the proverbial cat that had gotten into the cream when you two joined us so I assume you were up to snuff."

Now, as they sat to breakfast, as he tried not to reach over and slap that smirk right off Blaise's face, he grabbed the paper and looked for the Quidditch scores.

"I have the sports section," Theo said. That the front pages were missing was something all three men tacitly avoided mentioning. "You'll have to settle for the gossip."

Draco made a face but skipped past the recipes and such to find the society section. "Oh," he said, looking up. "Weasley and Pansy tied the knot."

Ginny held her hand out and he passed the paper over, trying not to look at Granger. Nothing quite like finding out your ex got married the day after you consummated your own forced marriage. He'd felt the binding vow tighten when he'd come into her, a tiny magical chain looped around his wrist like someone holding on to him as if they'd never let him go, as if he mattered enough to hold on to, but he'd decided not to ask her if she'd felt it too for fear she'd say 'no'.

Or maybe fear she'd say 'yes' and that she wasn't happy about it

Or maybe even fear she'd just say 'yes'.

"Poor Ron." Ginny had handed the paper over to Hermione and she was studying the photo of Ron and Pansy together. The formal portrait showed them standing in front of some archway, a ridiculous bouquet of rare flowers in Pansy's hands and a rock even larger than Ginny's on her hand. Pansy looked smugly pleased; Ron looked resigned but, maybe, a little pleased as well. Nervous, perhaps, but pleased.

"I think he'll be happy," Luna said. "What he always wanted was to be loved and to be wealthy and to get attention and Pansy was always a bit smothery."

Draco nearly choked at the accuracy of that assessment as he fussed with the teapot.

Ginny snorted. "I bet he feels guilty at how much this has worked out for him. He's now a rich playboy with exactly one responsibility: regularly shagging his wife." Blaise looked at her and she flushed a little but added, "I love my brother but he's got his flaws, you know."

"I hope he's happy," was all Hermione said, setting the paper down and going to pour herself tea before she realized Draco had already made her a cup, had even sweetened it the way she liked. She smiled thanks at him and he grinned back at her.

"Let's go into the gardens," Ginny suggested, looking back and forth from Hermione to Draco. "Have some girl talk."

After the three of them had walked away, cups and scones in their hands, Blaise turned to Draco and said, "Why do I suspect they'll be sharing details of what's made you smile like an idiot that, if you shared, would make her start throwing things again."

. . . . . . . . . .

"So," Ginny said once they were away from the boys, "how was it?"

Hermione laughed. "It was nice. It was… good. It was good."

"So the earth moved?"

They'd reached the revolting pagan statue with the faun and the swan. "Is that supposed to be Leda?" Hermione asked, eyeing it and Luna shrugged.

"You're avoiding the question," Ginny teased.

Hermione rolled her eyes and settled down on a bench near the faun's hooves. "No, Ginny. The earth didn't move but… it was… it was still nice." She looked up towards the breakfast area. "He was…. I don't think anyone has cared for him for a long time, you know? We all kind of wrote him off as evil – all of them – and he's just..."

"Lost," Luna said placidly.

"Lonely," Hermione said as if agreeing and Luna nodded. Hermione ran her thumb around her wrist and then said, her voice low, "I could feel the vow."

Ginny looked at her, perplexed, and Hermione repeated herself. "I could feel the marriage vow. It - tightened, I guess? – when he was in me."

"Consummation would do that," Luna said and Hermione looked momentarily surprised then annoyed with herself.

"Of course," she said. "Of course it would."

"What did it feel like," Luna asked and Hermione seemed to search for a description. "Like it throttled you?" Luna pushed and at that the other girl shook her head.

"More like… as if I had been on a moor in the rain and the cold and the fog and someone slipped up next to me and wrapped a heavy cloak around me and it was… I mean, it weighed me down but it was a good kind of restriction, like warmth and care and… like someone was there and I wasn't alone anymore."

"That sounds nice," Ginny said very quietly and Hermione made a self-conscious huff.

"I said it was nice," she said. "I…. I don't know if he felt it though, you know?"

"I'm sure he did," Ginny said, but it was just the polite response and they all knew it.

"How about you?" Hermione asked, trying to turn things away from her own problematic marriage. "How are you doing? Really?"

Ginny had sat down on the ground and pulled her knees up to her and now she sat with her arms wrapped around them. "It's okay," she said at last. "It's… I like being taken care of. No one's ever done that. It's always been 'oh, Ginny's tough, she'll be fine'. By the seventh kid no one really has any energy left for you, you know?"

Luna sat down next to Ginny and began to stroke her hair.

Ginny's voice started to shake as she went on, "Even after the thing with the diary it was all, 'oh, how could you be so stupid' and then everyone just went on their merry way. No one asked if I was okay, no one asked what it had been like to have… that… that _thing_ inside your soul for so long. 'Cause Ginny's tough, right? She'll be fine." She had started to cry and Hermione dropped down from her bench to the ground and wrapped her arms around the other woman.

"I'm so sorry," she said.

"It's okay," Ginny managed to say.

"It's not," Hermione said. "You're right, we all just… just moved on."

"Harry understood," Ginny said at last. "He knew what it was like to have that… in your head. But he… he didn't have any space to take care of anyone except trying to… and then it didn't even _work_. How could he fail, Hermione? How could that have happened?"

"I don't know," Hermione said, her voice low. "It wasn't supposed to end that way."

Ginny took a deep breath and then said, "But he takes care of me. Blaise, I mean. And… he just… I _like _it. I like him. I like… I like knowing I can trust him. I think I would not like him to leave my life. I think I would fight anyone who tried to take him away from me."

"Love?" Luna asked but Ginny shook her head.

"Not yet," she said. "I don't think… yet." She sighed and smiled a little wanly. "How about you. Tell us about you and Theo. Did you feel any kind of vow tightening when you guys had sex the first time?"

"We haven't had sex," Luna said in her usual serene, somewhat distracted tone and Ginny gaped at her.

"What do you mean, you haven't had sex."

Luna blinked a few times and said, "Well, we haven't."

"But… that boy adores you." Ginny said and Luna shrugged. "I thought you two were nuts about each other," Ginny persisted.

Luna picked a blade of stringy, tough grass and began wrapping it around her finger as she contemplated it. After she had the whole thing twined into a ring she said, "When I woke up with Theo after that first horrible night I knew I trusted him. I decided I was going to and so I did. He's noble and kind and much braver than he thinks he is." She sighed. "He made me eat that first night – "

"They all have some weird obsession with food," Ginny muttered and Hermione laughed.

Luna smiled and began pushing the unmowed grasses into a pattern. "It was good," she said. "I was shocky and he cut a pear and fed me the slices until I started to be a little more there. I sat there while this boy I didn't know cut fruit up and made me eat it and thought about what was happening to everyone else. Bodies on the ground. Draco hauling Hermione off. I'd wondered what it would be like to be destroyed as I stood there in that hall, would I shatter, or… and instead here was this boy tempting me to eat with little delicacies and wrapping me up in this… it still feels a little surreal. And he held me as I fell apart and he was kind and I want to be sure that I'm not just grateful. I want to be sure that this is… not just gratitude that I am trying to make be love simply because it would be nice if it were."

She tilted her head to the side and looked at Hermione. "It's not like you two; I didn't even know Theo until a month ago. You and Draco have been in love for years."

"We have not!" Hermione protested.

Luna shrugged. "You've been very aware of each other, then. He watched you. You watched him. You both always knew where each other were."

"Because I wanted to avoid him," Hermione said, staring at Luna. "Because he liked insulting me. That's not love!"

"Draco's not the most emotionally clever person ever, no," Luna agreed. At least, it sounded like agreement even if Hermione wasn't quite sure what she meant.

"It's weird to think of George married," Ginny said. "Ron too. Somehow that feels stranger then… this. And who'd have thought anything could seem stranger than this. Are you… okay, Hermione? I know you and Ron…"

Hermione sighed and slumped a little. "It's… it wouldn't have worked, I don't think. All we ever really did was fight."

Ginny laughed at that. "True. Though you and Draco fight all the time too."

"Maybe I really am a total bitch." Hermione had joined Luna in fiddling with the grass. At Ginny's questioning sound she added, "Don't people say if you have the same problem in every relationship you should look at the one thing that doesn't change, meaning you."

Luna started to laugh at that and Hermione shot her a rather annoyed look. "You fought with Ron because you wanted him to pay attention to you as more than a school chum, which he didn't. You and Draco are totally different." Luna ripped up several stands of the grass and began braiding them into her hair.

"How is it different?" Hermione demanded when it became clear Luna thought she was done.

Luna stood up and began brushing all the little bits of grass off of her. "It's just that Draco does nothing but pay attention to you. It's probably really weird after how Ron and Harry kind of took you for granted to have him be so focused on you all the time."

"He's been focused on me for a while," Hermione said softly, "I just didn't realize…"

"Still has to feel weird," Luna said. "I'm not surprised you two fight. You don't want him to consume you."

"He's so needy," Hermione said, still sitting, still looking down at the grass. "So… lost. I wish I knew how to… but…"

"I wonder what it felt like for him," Ginny said, sounding a little sad. "If you got the sense of being wrapped up in a cloak and not being along anymore I wonder what the vow felt like to him."

"You could ask," Luna suggested but Hermione shook her head.

"What if he didn't feel anything?" she asked, still looking down. "I don't want… no. I can't."

. . . . . . . . . .

**A/N – I've had to give up responding to every review for the summer. Summer vacation is a very different experience for the adult in the house. I do still love your comments, however, even if I'm using my more limited writing time to, well, write new stuff instead of say thank you personally. (That whole tumblr thing remains a good way to ask questions as my phone has decided it hates and refuses to load it but tumblr is OK (?) and thus I can respond to stuff while out in the world.)  
**


	15. Chapter 15

Luna sat in the walled garden of their little French house running her toes through the dusty remains of what had once been a flowerbed. None of the elves who had come with them had either an interest in, or a knack for, gardening and so, though they ate very well and the rooms were almost sterile they were so clean, the garden remained wild and untended. She loved it.

She sometimes felt a little guilty about how much she loved this home. To live with friends, to live with Theo, to be safe and warm at the French shore – if she had been asked to describe her perfect life this might well have been it. Life, friends, warmth.

Theo.

A man who wanted so much to be ordinary, to be simple, yet who defied those things with every decision he'd made since he'd married her. How easy it would have been for him to be a member of an elite force in a cruel regime. He'd have had money, power, anything he wanted. To turn away from that was no ordinary decision, the act of no simple man.

Even knowing that Britain was covered in shadows she couldn't turn her face away from his light.

The sun soaking into her as she sat in this walled garden and thought about life and hope and laughter was a balm like no other.

A balm a shadow interrupted.

She looked back to see Theo standing between her and the sun, a parasol, of all things, held in his hands. "I can only assume," he said, "that your fair skin tends to burn in the sun."

"So you're protecting me," she said, smiling up at him.

"Mmm. Why are you out here in this baking heat, anyway?" he asked.

"Sometimes I like the feel of the light on my skin and want to enjoy it, no matter the risk," she said looking back at her feet in the dirt and curling her toes back and forth.

Theo sat next to her, still holding the sunshade with one hand, and slipped the other arm around her. She leaned into him and the shifted until they had found the way they fit best and then she rested her head into that spot on his shoulder that seemed to have been made for her and sighed with pleasure.

"Happy?" he asked her and she made a little assenting noise.

"I feel bad, sometimes," she admitted. "This life is growing out of such misery. Do I think about the people still there? About Padma? About Ginny's family? If I'm happy am I betraying them?"

"I don't know," Theo said quietly. "Is that what you're thinking about down here in what the real estate agent optimistically called a garden?"

"That," she said, "and about alchemy and flowers and arranged marriages."

"Alchemy?" he asked, leaving the more obviously painful subject of arranged marriages alone. "Turning base metals into gold?"

"Turning things base into things of value," she said in agreement and sat in restful silence until she realized he hadn't quite followed her. "Fear into love, for example."

"Oh," he said, his tone filled with hope and fear and wonder and Luna wondered if he could hear the way her heart was thumping in her chest.

"I should be wise," she murmured, "and not speak first, let you be bold and daring."

"I'm not either of those things," he whispered into her hair. "I'm a terrified man who fled a war and is hiding behind wards. Be foolish, I beg you."

She pulled her head away from his shoulder and turned to look at him, lifting one hand to run it along his jaw and feeling the rough beginnings of stubble, pressing a thumb against his lips. "I love you," she said. "If I had had perfect knowledge of all men, I would have chosen you. You are peace and you are calm and you are all of my happiness." He closed his eyes and sank his face into her hand, the parasol laid down into the dirt, and the sun beat down on them again.

"How?" he asked her, his lips moving against her palm. "How is this possible?"

"Alchemy," she murmured. "It's magic."

"Luna, I love you," he said, his face still hidden, his breath hot on her fingers. "You are magic and light and some kind of salvation in all this horror. I wish I could offer you... everything…instead of a life hidden in a dusty garden behind walls and… you should be honored and the chatelaine of… I'm so sorry that this is all I have to give you."

"Yourself," she said. "It's all I want."

"My House," he whispered. "Your House."

"You," she said, "just you," and he looked up at that and then he was kissing her more violently, more urgently, then he ever had. She threw herself at him with the same fervor, tangling her fingers in his dark hair and pulling him toward her, pulling herself into him. She whimpered against his mouth and could feel herself, sweaty and dusty, wrapped in the arms of this man who was so much braver than he thought.

When he broke away from her and rested his forehead against hers he asked, "So, that explains alchemy, intoxicating moonshine girl and, I assume, arranged marriages too."

"Mmm." She rubbed her nose on his and closed her eyes to let herself concentrate on the feel of his hair in her hands, on the way he pulled her onto his lap, on the way she could feel his desire. "The idea that love should come before marriage is new. This way we've done it is really much more traditional."

"Well, the House of Nott is a very traditional one," Theo said, his voice rough with desire as he teased her. "Tell me about the flowers and distract me before I ravish you right here in the dirt."

"I think I want to plant a bed of Moon Flowers and Nottingham Catchfly and Night Phlox," she said.

"Night blooming flowers," he said, "Luna…"

"For your House," she said, her eyes still closed. "It's too hot in the sun now, Theo. I want to go inside."

"Luna," he said, "I haven't pushed you. I know…"

"Push," she said. "I don't know how. Show me."

"I can do that," he said.

. . . . . . . . . .

His room was cool and dim; the thick walls and shutters had kept the heat and light out. Once they were behind closed doors Theo turned to look at Luna. Dressed in one of the antique sundresses she'd absconded with from Nott Manor she looked like an innocent, otherworldly creature from a different time. Her pale hair fell about her shoulders and her feet were dirty and she looked at him with her wide, pale eyes.

"Luna," he said, not believing she was his. Not believing she loved him.

"I assume this has to come off," she said, tugging at the shoulder of her dress with a smile and he could feel himself harden and struggled to slow down lest he scare her away.

"Let me," he said and she turned around and pulled her hair out of the way and he nearly groaned at the row of very small buttons that did the dress up. "How did you get this on?" he muttered as he started to undo the first one.

"Magic," she said and, at the mischievous lilt in her voice he lowered his forehead to rest on her skin.

"Don't suppose you'd teach me the spell that undoes all these," he asked as his fingers finished undoing the first one, then the second, and then caught and nearly tore the tiny pearl button off the third. "Just in the interest of saving the dress of course."

"It's easy enough to mend," Luna said and Theo narrowed his eyes at her back as he fumbled with another button.

"People assume you live in your own world," he said, undoing and undoing and undoing. "But you may be the most aware person I've ever met." He tugged the dress down over her hips until it was a pile of eyelet fabric at her feet that looked up at him without blinking. The girl who it had revealed turned to him and he ran his hand along her hips and across the contours of her belly, noting she hadn't worn a bra under that dress. She was all curves and planes and he wanted to learn her well enough to be able to draw her from memory alone.

"Your turn," she said, and reached to the hem of his casual shirt and tried to pull it over his head, standing on her toes to finally get it clear. He pushed his shoes off and went to undo the button of his trousers but she put her hand over his. "You undid mine," she said and he lifted his hands in surrender.

Wel, he'd thought it was surrender until she knelt down and undid the button and he could feel her breath though the fabric of his pants as she tugged his trousers down and he stepped out of them and it took an act of will so strong he was surprised he managed it to not fist his hands in her pale hair and pull her mouth to him, even through the pants that she, Merlin help him, removed as well.

He was going to die.

She reached out one finger and traced it along the length of him and he swallowed as he bobbed under her questing touch. "How the fuck are you so innocent?" he finally ground out as she looked up at him, rubbing clear fluid together between her fingers.

"Looney Luna," she said. "And I wasn't interested in bodies without minds."

Theo reached down and gently guided her back to standing. "Maybe you'd like to go the bed," he suggested. "Because wherever we are very soon is going to be where we consummate this marriage and the bed is probably a lot more comfortable than this floor."

She didn't let him lead her there, though. She pressed against him and, as he struggled not to grind himself against her, kissed him, slowly at first, and then with increased urgency and fervor until he realized his hands were tangled in her hair and gripping her so tightly he could have dragged her off. He broke the kiss and stared down at her, panting. "Luna," he said, "I want to make this good for you, I really do, but I'm about to break here."

She backed up, pulling him with her, until her back was against the wall and then she took his hand and guided it into her knickers. He put his other hand against the wall by her head and leaned against it as he felt her. "You're so wet," he said, voice rough. "Fuck, you really want me." He thrust fingers into her and pushed them back and forth, rubbing his thumb over her as she bit her lip and grabbed onto him, her nails digging into him with a passion that belied how, other than a few whimpers, she was almost totally silent as he played with her.

"Say my name," he begged her as he lowered his mouth to a nipple and teased it with his tongue even as he kept his fingers buried in her knickers, flicking and rubbing and feeling her.

He never wanted to stop feeling her.

He wanted to be inside her.

"Theo," she gasped and he pulled his head back long enough to demand she say it again. She didn't but she's moved on to saying, "please" over and over again and he stopped to actually tear the knickers off like he'd claimed to like doing in that damn clothing shop and toss them to the side.

"Is this okay?" he asked and she made a mewling sound thrust her pelvis towards his hand."

"Theo," she said again and he dropped down to his knees and pulled her apart with his hands and ran his tongue over her, back and forth and around, thrusting in and pulling back to flicker across her again and again until he could feel her hands convulse in his hair and could feel her shaking against his mouth as she came in great waves at his touch.

He stood up, "Here?" he asked, "or the bed?"

"Here," she said, and he picked her up and braced her against the wall as he lined her up against him and thrust into her with a gasp. She wrapped her arms and legs around him and held on as he rocked her against the wall. A part of his mind cautioned him to be careful but his body – her body – overrode that and he watched her face as he fucked her, watched her flinch at the first penetration, then relax around him. She was calling his name, now, over and over again, matching his rhythm. Where ever her skin touched his was fire and light and he could hear himself saying her name as he finally slammed her body into the wall and came into her with wracking shudders.

He stood there, when he was done, and swallowed as he looked at her, still wrapped around him, pushed up against the wall.

"Maybe now we could go to the bed?" he asked and she laughed, the most beautiful sound in the world.

The second most beautiful.

The first was her voice saying his name when he made her his.

. . . . . . . . . .

**A/N – Thank you, as always, for reading and commenting. Your sweet words are the energy that keeps me writing. **


	16. Chapter 16

Theo came back from a trip down to the small town looking worried. "I've done something," he said to Draco, his voice low, "something you may not agree with. And I should have asked but – "

"What's going on?" Draco asked.

"I just couldn't tell her no, especially after I, well, you'll see," Theo said, and, as Draco narrowed his eyes Daphne stepped hesitantly into their foyer, George Weasley behind her.

"You _fucker_," Draco exploded. "All that work to hide this place, all the wards, the fidelius charm. It's fucking _unplottable_ and you decide to make all that worthless the first time some pretty girl bats her eyes at you!"

Draco spun on his heel.

"Where are you going?" Theo demanded and Draco rounded back on him looking like he was resisting the drive to hex the other man only by a great force of will.

"I'm going to go find Granger and get her deeper into hiding before your little security breach brings Snatchers down on us."

"We're not spies," Daphne said. "Draco, please – "

But then he turned on her, stalking up to her until she was stepping backwards into George. "Oh, yes. I'm sure you're bloody well unwitting but you're – "

"Leave her alone," George Weasley spoke for the first time, wrapping an arm around the woman and sheltering her. "She's telling the truth."

"Do you understand what 'unwitting' means?" Draco glowered at the man before hurling his body up the stairs to try to find Hermione and haul her away.

Theo looked at the couple huddled against one another in his front hall and swore under his breath. "I'd better go find him before he does something unusually stupid. Don't go anywhere and don't worry; we're not going to turn you out. Draco's just…. just wait, okay?" And he hurried up the stairs after Draco.

Daphne and George, society couple, stood uncertainly and alone until Ginny walked through. She stopped and stared at them for a moment before she ran the rest of the way and flung herself into George's arms. "How are you here?" she said, "how are you… are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he laughed a little. "Gin, I'm okay." He pulled back a little and said, a little uncomfortably, "Ginny, this is Daphne my, umm…"

"Wife," the woman said holding herself stiffly, her shoulders braced.

Ginny looked at her for a moment, looked at the bag she'd left behind her and the way her jaw was clenched and then, much to both Daphne and George's shock, let go of her brother and wrapped her arms around Daphne. "I've always wanted a sister," she said. Daphne sagged and if she didn't start to cry it was only because of a lifetime of controlling her emotions.

"Malfoy didn't seem to want us here," George said.

"You're here to _stay_?" Ginny asked, stepping away from them both.

"That… is that okay?" Daphne looked nervous again until Ginny's whole face broadened in a huge smile.

"Draco can be an arse," she said dismissively. "It's more than okay, it's _great_." She tugged them both into the sitting room and pulled Daphne next to her on a couch. George balanced on the arm, still hovering over Daphne as though he were afraid Draco would come back in and loom over her again. "Tell me _everything."_

"Wait," Daphne said, "Did you say _Draco_ was an arse?"

"Well, he is," Ginny said. "And pushy and thoughtless and stubborn and scared out of his damn mind. Don't worry, though; Hermione will dig her heels in and refuse to just be hustled out of here before she knows what's going on. It'll be fine."

"No, I know... it's just… you called him Draco." Daphne studied the other woman's face.

Ginny huffed a little. "You can't exactly flee your country as a refugee with someone and still keep calling him by his last name."

"I thought you… I expected Draco to welcome me," Daphne said, shaking her head. "Not you."

"Down the rabbit hole." Ginny sounded a little manic. "Through the looking glass. We're all mad here." She slumped after that and, taking a deep breath, said, "Why are you here, George?"

"Same reason you are," Daphne answered for him. "Trying to get away from… him."

Ginny was still looking at George, who looked wan and tired. "It's awful back home, Gin. He's Minister now, did you know that? Muggle-borns are required to register and wear a big M on their clothes. There's a curfew and…"

"I was told I had one year to get pregnant," Daphne said. "That it was my duty to the state to… and they'd all be Death Eaters or be brood mares because…"

"… and I may be pureblood but we're notorious blood traitors, as people pointed out constantly. Poor Daphne, burdened with a blood traitor, if only her father had taken the Mark – "

"He's taken it now," she said, sounding sad.

"Did you…?" Ginny looked at George in horror but he shook his head.

"I'm a stud, nothing more."

"But," Ginny looked from George to Daphne, "you two… are you?"

At that Daphne smiled, a genuine look of absolute, impish happiness on her face and George Weasley said, "She's the one good thing in this nightmare. Did you know she'd reverse engineered half the Skivving Snackbox and was making _counterfeit versions_ to sell in the Slytherin common room?"

Daphne flushed at that but it was clearly due to happiness at the obvious admiration in George's voice.

"I thought she was so shy," he continued on. "She would barely look at me at our wedding, she spoke so quietly the Ministry arsehole had to ask her to repeat herself. Then she made this _filthy_ jokeat the reception, and I could barely hear it and I was sure I had to have heard wrong and…yeah. By the end of the first night we'd made plans to get out."

"Daphne?" The tone was incredulous and Blaise was coming into the room and was scooping her up and hugging her. "You got _out_?"

"I did," she said, "We both did."

Blaise shoved a hand out towards George and the two men shook.

"She seems happy," George said right as Blaise said, "Daphne seems in one piece."

Ginny looked at Daphne, still wrapped up in one of Blaise's arms, and frowned. She stood up and slipped her own arm around him and narrowed her eyes at the other woman. Daphne let go of Blaise so quickly she almost fell over and George caught her. Blaise looked down at Ginny, momentarily perplexed before he smiled and brushed a kiss against the side of her head.

"How is everyone," Blaise asked, wrapping an arm around Ginny as Daphne and George both sat down again, shifting on the couch as if to make space for the other couple until, with a roll of he eyes, Blaise pulled over a big, stuffed armchair and sat down, balancing Ginny on his lap. She cuddled into him and he couldn't quite decide if he was amused this display of public affection was due to jealousy or happy she cared enough to be jealous.

He wrapped both arms around her and closed his eyes for a moment while he smelled her hair. Lavender, and dust, and that bit of Ginny that he couldn't even find a name for. When he opened his eyes George was eyeing him, looking, perhaps, not entirely pleased to see his little sister in this position. Daphne looked like she was hiding a smile and Blaise frowned at her.

"Millie's engaged to Percy," Daphne said. "They seem weirdly happy."

"We had dinner there once," George said. "They argued, in very earnest tones, about the impact of some new Ministry regulation on the import rates of an obscure Potions ingredient."

"For two hours," Daphne said. "Two. Ask me _anything_ about the regulations surrounding non-indigenous ingredient imports. Anything."

"That's okay," said Blaise.

"No, no, we insist," said George. "Why should the knowledge we were forced to acquire go to waste?"

"How about Greg?" Blaise asked and Daphne looked away.

"He's happy, I think," she said, at last. "He's…he took the Mark and… he's married to one of the Patil twins. Parvati I think. The one from Gryffindor."

"Is she…?" Ginny didn't finish the question.

"He's been told to back off or she might not be able to conceive," Daphne said, still looking away. "So she'll live."

Ginny shrank back and Blaise tightened his arms around her.

"I thank every star every night that Ginny ended up with you," George said, his voice very quiet. "I don't know why you pulled her out of that line up. You didn't even know her. But… I've seen… I've seen things I'd…it's bad at home." He finally said. "It's bad for the girls. They've started calling them 'Death Eater brides' and people spit on them in the street, as if… as if they'd asked for…not everyone is as bad as Greg Goyle, of course. But…"

"It's bad," Daphne said. "Can we talk about something else?"

"Bill and Charlie?" Ginny asked, obviously afraid to hear the answer.

"Charlie's still at the dragon preserve in Romania," George said. "Bill fled with Fleur. I don't know where to; better not to know too much."

Ginny closed her eyes sagged against Blaise in relief. "Teddy?" she asked. "Lupin and Tonks' son?"

"Dead," Daphne said, looking at George, who'd closed his eyes against this one. "Bellatrix did it herself to cleanse the family tree."

The something else to talk about quickly became not family members dead or in hiding but the bushy-haired witch who came hurtling down the stairs, Draco at her heels. "George?" she asked, hope and fear and disbelief in her voice.

"Hermione?" he said, mimicking her tone with added mockery and then he was standing up and she was caught up in his arms and laughing and kissing him and she was holding a hand out to Daphne and apologizing for some vague thing and Daphne, shy again, was mumbling and Hermione was insisting and Draco just stood there, arms folded, scowling until Hermione turned on him.

"You planned to throw them out?" she demanded.

"No," he said with his customary sneer, "I plan to haul you, the woman I vowed to protect, away from this fucking compromised travesty of a safe house."

"It's fine," Theo was stalking down the stairs with a furious expression. "I… fuck you, you moron. Do you think I would have risked Luna? Do you think I would have let them put one fucking _toe_ over the ward lines if I hadn't already… I'm not an idiot, you know. They're totally clean, both of them. Not a tracking spell, not a ward, not a curse, _nothing._"

"You could have missed something," Draco muttered, fastening his hand around Hermione's arm as though he really planned to pull her bodily from the house.

"Stop going off half-cocked," Theo snapped. "I didn't."

"He only has half a cock?" George said, smirking at Draco. "Oh, Hermione, I'm so sorry."

"If he doesn't let go of my arm he's going to have less than that very shortly," Hermione said, glaring at the man holding on to her.

Daphne reached a hand out towards Draco. "We can go," she said very quietly.

"You can _not_," Blaise, Theo, and Hermione all said at once.

"Don't be such a fucking arsehole," Hermione said to Draco and again, George coughed and this time Daphne put a hand over her mouth to cover a smirk.

"Hey," George said, "We don't judge but…"

"Am I seriously going to have to put up with double entendres all the time with you around? Hermione demanded and Blaise snickered.

"I like you already, George," he said. "These people I live with, so fucking serious all the damn time. It's like that arsehole outlawed humor as well or something."

"You're just… impossible," Hermione said, turning to glare at the man who still had Ginny on his lap, was, for all his teasing banter, still holding her as though she might break any moment.

"Merely improbable," he corrected her as Luna drifted into the room.

"Hey, hey, the gang's all here," Draco said. "Say your goodbyes, Hermione, because we're leaving."

She shook his hand off her arm and glared at him. "Dream on, control freak. We're staying." She turned to George and asked, suddenly a bit more tense. "Should we expect Ron and Pansy too?"

At that question there was an awkward pause that hovered between them all until George sat back down next to Daphne and said, simply, "No."

"I don't think Pansy has any plans to leave the country or defect," Daphne said. "She's… this… I don't want to say anything…"

"She can't be happy with the new regime?" Blaise said. "Not even Pansy."

"She is," Daphne said. "She's got a brand new husband – and you know how she could never get anyone to… you know – "

"Touch her with a ten-foot pole?" Theo asked.

Daphne looked uncomfortable but she nodded. "She… he really likes her, you know? He's all cute and awkward and she's already made things better for him. She does that thing where she tosses her hair and she acts like getting Potter's side kick handed to her as a husband means she won a prize at the fair and… and… she's made everyone else believe it too. He's chattel, of course, but she turned him into valuable chattel and – "

"And he likes that," Hermione said softly. "He likes being important even if it's - ." She stopped talking and swallowed. "So no Ron and Pansy, then. That's good. I don't think we have enough rooms for them, anyway."

"I had the elves clean up that last suite," Luna added. "Do you want to see it?"

"We're _leaving,"_ Draco insisted again but everyone ignored him.

"What do you need?" Luna added. "You can't have enough in that one little bag for you both. I have a lot of spare knickers if that would help."

. . . . . . . . . .

_**A/N – Hope you enjoy it. I finished up writing chapter 21 this AM. Maybe 30-35 total for this one by the time it's all done. Not sure. **_

_**Your reviews on our silly stories are the lifeblood of fanfic writers everywhere.**_


	17. Chapter 17

Blaise was never quite sure when it was he fell in love in with Ginevra Weasley. He'd known who she was, of course. That red Weasley hair was impossible to miss and she was pretty, more that pretty. He'd made the mistake of admiring her aloud one time and Pansy had twitted him about it for years. It wasn't even as if she were jealous; Pansy just hated anyone outside of Slytherin. He wished Ron Weasley, rather hilariously now his brother-in-law, luck with that wretched harpy.

He certainly hadn't loved his wife when he plucked her out of that lineup at Hogwarts. She was an Order member, presumably privy to some of Harry Potter's skills and knowledge. She was an asset; a useful asset. Nothing more. Still pretty, of course. Always pretty.

And no innocent virgin. That had shocked him. Not that he was either, of course, but she was younger and the way she's smoldered at him after half a glass of whiskey had thrown him off balance. The way she'd known what she was doing had knocked his feet right out from under him. She'd pushed him towards the bed and beat him there and it had been a near opium-dream of an interlude. It had been beyond glorious and he'd enjoyed every moment, enjoyed the taste of her skin, the taste of her, enjoyed the way she'd moved and the way she'd sounded. He'd enjoyed but he hadn't _loved._

He'd worried after that, as she drew into herself, as he had to bully her into eating, into getting out of bed. Worried and fretted and fussed and fed and cared.

Somewhere in there he had started to care.

He wasn't sure when, though.

Was it when he came back from letting her know her brothers were alive – a damn fool errand if ever there had been one? Was it when he decided to _go_ on that damn fool errand, no matter the risk, because he wanted to erase some of the dead, numb resignation from her eyes?

He'd put a ring on her hand, a ring with a rock his own avaricious mother would have approved of, and clothes on her back and had held her tight while Lucius Malfoy had tested Draco. He'd brought her here, stolen her from under the Dark Lord's nose, and slowly, so very, very slowly, she'd unclenched herself.

He knew she hid in the corners of the garden to sob. Knew didn't like to show him her grief over Potter's death. Hard, he supposed, to expect your husband to sympathize with you over your boyfriend's death.

That would be hard even if said death hadn't plunged you and everyone you knew into this strange, dark world.

Somewhere in there, maybe the day she let him brush her hair, maybe the day she said she wanted to see if they could be something, somewhere in all of that he'd begun to love her. He'd begun, on whatever day that was, that day he couldn't pinpoint at all, to want to coax a smile to her face, to nuzzle her until she gave that exasperated giggle she'd do when he'd charmed and irritated her at the same time.

"What are you, a puppy?" she'd say with that laugh as she pushed him away, as she let him return.

If he couldn't be sure when he began to love her, however, he knew the moment he was sure she loved him. It was when she draped herself in his lap and glared at Daphne Greengrass. Daphne Weasley, he supposed.

It was funny, really, because he'd taken such pains to never date, using even the most casual value of the word 'date', any girl in his own House. The Slytherin girls were calculating, cunning and could be downright vicious and, worse, they'd been raised since birth to evaluate a man's potential status as a partner. His own status was damn high but watching them smile at him as they reviewed his mother's wealth and his family's ranking within their culture behind their shuttered faces, watching them decide that he was a good bet, that had always been a turn off. He'd stuck to the much nicer girls in Hufflepuff; one quick sob story about the endless parade of step-fathers in his life and how his mother never had time for him and they'd been perfectly happy to try to make him feel better about life. He'd given a variation of the 'you're wonderful but I'm just not ready to be the kind of man you deserve' speech so many times he'd damn well perfected it. It was a clean way to end things and they'd never seemed that surprised; they were nice, those Hufflepuff girls, but not stupid.

By the first night Daphne, Slytherin to her core, had arrived he'd watched Ginny alternate between glowering at her supposed rival and looking at him sadly and as soon as they were alone, shut away into their suite behind silenced doors he flopped down on their bed and waited for her to confront him.

She didn't.

She just stood at the window, pulling a brush through her hair with sharp, short strokes and occasionally wincing when her own angry movements caught a tangle and yanked. "Ginny," he said and she ignored him. "Ginny," again, louder and she stopped.

"What?" she asked.

"Would you come here?"

She shook her head and he sighed and crossed over to her. He tugged on some of that glorious hair and said, "You don't need to be jealous of Daphne."

She hurumphed but turned to give him a half-hearted shove and, pretending to stagger backwards under the force of that he grabbed her and, with a very practiced move, threw himself backward onto the bed and deposited her on top of him.

"Well, pretty girl," he said, "You've got me pinned, totally at your mercy. All I ask is that you be gentle."

That coaxed a smile to her face and she stayed, shifting herself so she was a little more comfortable as she straddled him. "Blaise," she said, her voice quiet with a tiny hint of a question in it and he nodded and waited for her to go on. "Do you like me?" she finally said and his own cocky smirk faltered.

"Oh Gin," he said. "So much. So very, very much."

"More than Daphne?" she continued.

"So much more," he admitted and her eyes crinkled a little as she looked down at him. He watched her mood change and could feel himself stir as she bit her lower lip in awkward consideration of where she sat and what she wanted to do about it. Before she could decide to just get up he added, "So here I am, helpless in your clutches."

She scoffed a little at that but the grin still lurked about her eyes.

"Try me," he invited. "I'll do whatever you ask."

"Anything?" she asked and he just smirked up at her. "Fine," she said, a bit of bravado in her voice. "Take your shirt off."

He pulled it off and tossed it aside and she looked down at him and splayed her hand out across his abdomen, her pale, almost translucent skin a stark contrast to his own dark coloring. He propped himself up on one elbow and looked at her hand against him and said, "You're so damn pretty, Ginevra."

"Not compared to you," she said, starting to draw her fingers along the lines of his torso.

"Well, I never said I wasn't pretty too," he said, trying not to gasp at the teasing, light touch, trying not to hope this might end somewhere other than with him wanking in the shower.

"Vain," she said and he shrugged. He knew what he looked like.

She rolled off of him and he controlled his face so she wouldn't see his disappointment, an act of will that turned out to be unnecessary as she sprawled next to him and began tracing those same lines she'd run her fingers over moments before with her tongue. He could feel her warm breath on his skin and the tickling of her hair as it fell down over him and he groaned.

"I can stop if you want," she said.

He flopped back against the pillows. "Why would I ever want that?" he muttered, his breath catching as she grazed her teeth along his skin, as she pulled another groan from him. When her fingers began to fumble with the button on his trousers he reached down to help her but she batted his hand away.

"I know how to take things off," she said.

"Do I get to see you?" he asked as she tugged the slacks down over his hips and shimmied them down to his thighs, leaving his caught in his own clothing as she lowered her head back down to hips and ran that tongue along the top edge of his pants, tugging at the elastic waistband with her teeth. He reached his hands down towards her, wanting to touch, wanting to feel that hair in his fingers and she stopped.

"No," she said and he stopped, frozen. "You said you'd do what I ask and I say no touching."

He looked at her, his eyes wide as she straightened up and smirked down at him, the hint of nerves still dancing behind her eyes. He slowly put his arms above his head and licked his lips. "Whatever the lady wants," he said, voice ragged. "Do I get to ask for things?"

"If you ask nicely," she said, trailing the tips of her fingers over the cock pushing against the confines of his pants as he opened his mouth to make a request and instead just arched up under that touch.

"Please," he got out, "Ginny."

She laughed and said, her eyes bright, "I like this. I like having you almost speechless like this."

"As often as you want," he promised. "Ginny, _please_ let me see you."

Daily, he thought in his head. _Hourly_. I'll do whatever you ask, just…

She, looking uncertain again, pulled her own shirt off and he stared in wonder at the green satin bra that sat against her white skin.

"Nice," he said, lifting a hand towards her then, frustration nearly throttling him, pushing it back down against the bed. "Not what I would have expected."

She blushed at that and he pushed down the urge to laugh at the incongruous innocence of that. "I don't own much except what your lot bought for me," she muttered at his smile. "That shop seemed to think you'd be partial to green."

"It looks good with your hair," he said. "It looks good with _you_." He picked a hand up again, wanting to touch her so damn much, and then made a loud, disgruntled noise as she looked at it and he made a fist and lowered it again. "You're going to kill me."

She lowered her head down again and her breath through his pants really was going to kill him. She didn't let him touch, not at all. She teased and licked and tasted and finally pulled his pants down as well and he sprang free and she _still_ wouldn't let him touch her, not even when she had her mouth around him and he was just gasping out a stream of incoherent 'please's. When she pulled her own pants off and lowered herself onto him he jerked with shock and began to whimper. When she rode him he remembered this woman was a Quidditch player, this woman was strong, and he could hear his own voice saying her name over and over again as she pushed him inexorably towards the same brink she was seeking and he fought to hold off until he could feel her convulsing around him and then he couldn't bear it any more and he was coming into her almost immediately, his arms still obediently held above his head as he died the little death.

"Ginny," he said after a moment, after she'd pulled herself off him and rolled to the side.

"Mmm?" she asked.

"Can I hold you now?"

"Yeah," she said and he did, wrapping his arms around her and pushing his face into her hair.

"Are you okay?" he asked as she lay there and she curled herself into him.

"I think so," she said at last and he let out a breath.

"I was worried," he admitted.

"Was I that terrible?" she teased but he'd grown up with women far more opaque than she was and he could easily hear the fear under the light tone.

"You were wonderful," he said. "Mean," he added, "You were incredibly mean, not letting me touch you. I thought I was going to die, Ginny, actually die from wanting to feel your skin." He ran his hands over her back now, stopping with some annoyance to unhook that green satin bra that, as lovely as it really was, was keeping him from feeling even more of her skin against his. She laughed and helped him pull it off and toss it aside, then sat as he yanked his slacks all the way off and kicked them to the floor. He pushed her away long enough to get the covers down and tuck her under them, tuck himself under them, then held her against him again.

"I'd do anything for you, Ginevra Weasley," he said, his voice serious for a moment. "You know that, right? You know that Daphne isn't a rival, right?"

"I…" she shook her head and didn't answer.

"I love you," he said and he could feel her shock at those words. "Love, Gin. Not like. Not want, though, trust me, I want you. I want you in ways I can't even bring myself to say. But… I love you, Gin. I love you."

She didn't respond but he could feel the tears prickling against his chest and he held her more tightly until they both fell asleep.

. . . . . . . . . .

_**A/N – Well, I wrote the last chapter so I SWEAR I know where this is going. Any guesses?**_


	18. Chapter 18

When Ginny woke Blaise had tuned away from her onto his back and had one arm flung out. He'd kicked off most of the covers sometime during the night and, still naked from the night before, he lay displayed before her, an arrogantly beautiful offering, hers for the taking. She felt down into herself and tried to find the sense of guilt and betrayal but it wasn't there any more, just Luna's voice asking why wouldn't Harry want her to be happy.

She propped herself up on an elbow and looked at Blaise, reached one hand out to touch them then pulled it back when she caught sight of the big ring on her finger. That was a lie. Whatever else they were, married they were not. She'd well and truly buggered up that ceremony.

She hadn't expected that to make her quite as sad as it did.

She wasn't even sure why this boy – this man, really – seemed to care for her at all. She hadn't ever been nice to him. She'd used him, then shut him out. And still he'd pushed and coaxed and cared and loved until, somehow, he'd won.

She was still staring at him when he opened his eyes and smiled at her, a slow, wonderful smile.

"Well," he murmured. "Look at you." He rolled over until he had her body pinned beneath his. "Do I get to touch you this time?" he whispered as his fingers began trailing down her body, one slightly ragged nail catching against her skin.

"Love me," she said, looking up into those dark eyes. "Love me, Blaise."

"Oh, I do," he said, bending his head down to nip and lick at her neck.

And he did.

. . . . . . . . . . .

George knew, of course. The moment he saw them at breakfast, saw the way Blaise's arm curled around her with a slightly more proprietary curve than it had the day before, saw the way Ginny tilted her head against him as if she were pulling strength from him, he knew.

What fascinated him wasn't that his baby sister was sleeping with her husband – and let's not think too closely about that, he mused to himself – but that apparently this was something new.

Something fragile.

He watched Blaise pull out her chair and make her a plate of food, watched the way she thanked him, and forebore to tease. They were all more fragile now and Theo'd already warned him not to ask about or mention the main section of the paper. "We make that disappear," the man had said, "and so far none of them have asked about it."

Protective. Not a word George would have associated with the loathed snakes but something he'd come to appreciate since meeting Daphne. She smiled and bent and looked down and it seemed like the tiniest of breezes would blow her away but within the first hour of their wedding reception he'd noticed how she seemed to always place herself between him and any of the dangerous men who commented how fortunate he was to have been kept alive, how they'd not have been so merciful.

"The Dark Lord is very kind," Daphne had agreed, drifting with no apparent purpose away from them and towards safer quadrants of the room, pulling her new husband in her wake, sheltering him from their knife-edged words with her empty-headed simpering.

By the time they'd made plans to leave, by the time they'd discovered quite what kindred spirits they were, she'd already become his protector in the brave new hell in which they lived. He'd hated it, hated that he had to hide behind this quiet girl who was younger than he was. When he'd tried to tell her that, though, she'd put a hand over his mouth and said, "I did make quite a profit from those counterfeit candies; consider it royalties."

"I want to be the one to take care of you," he'd protested. "Tell these people to leave you alone, that you didn't ask for me, that they need to stop – "

She'd pushed her hand more firmly over his mouth and said, voice low. "Do you think you could shutter your Gryffindor bravery and rash stupidity long enough for us to get out?"

"I love you," he'd said against her hand, the words too muffled to be understood.

If Daphne, mild, quiet, shy Daphne, had a protective streak in her, it was nothing compared to the ones these friends of hers had. Theo had taken one look at her in the marketplace in this little seaside town and had grabbed her into a hug so fierce it had infuriated George. He'd been even angrier when the man stepped back and examined her, looking, clearly, for signs of abuse.

"I'm not mistreating her," he'd snapped and the tall, dark-haired man had laughed.

"It's not you I'm worried about," Theodore Nott had said as he looked the girl over. "It's her family."

"I am her family," George Weasley had said, daring the man to dispute it. Theo had, instead, smiled and thrust his hand out.

And so into the fold he was brought.

The funny thing, George thought, looking around the table, was how much this house looked like the society that mad bastard ruling Britain claimed he wanted. Out of the eight people sitting here, passing pitchers of juice and making conversation about Quidditch matches and whether a shopping trip into Paris to get Daphne more clothes was a good idea or not, seven were purebloods.

There weren't even that many purebloods _left_.

Five were members of the oh-so-Sacred Twenty-Eight.

Only Hermione, who Draco both doted on and glared at, wouldn't automatically be a bloody princess in Riddle's world.

Hermione, who orchestrated a closet-looting plan once a trip to Paris was deemed too unsafe, who led the bemused Daphne upstairs as Draco sulked and pouted and worried, only the girl he'd always thought his little brother would marry, only the woman who trailed her hand along Draco Malfoy's shoulder as she left the table.

Draco took that hand and brought it to his lips with a formal kiss across the edge of her fingertips.

"Well, they'll be gone for a bit," Theo said as all four women disappeared to fill out Daphne's wardrobe and pulled the front section of the paper out from where he'd stashed it.

George watched the doting lovers turn into cold-eyed exiles.

"Anything especially bad today?" Blaise asked.

Theo divided the paper and passed it out and they all began skimming. "Muggle-borns have been banned from most employment," he noted. "Nothing else seems too awful."

No one else found anything too bad either and there were no pictures of Riddle and so Blaise neatly folded it back up and left it out as if it had never been hidden.

"Any photos of that monster we burn," Blaise said in an undertone to George. "Ginny can't… it's too upsetting to her."

Protective indeed.

"Tell me about Ron," Draco said.

"What?" George looked over at the man who still, so very clearly, didn't want them here. "Why him? Why not Percy or Neville or that sodding Greg Goyle who you ran with?"

"Greg's a sadistic bastard with the mental capacity of a sea urchin," Draco said. "I'd rather not think about what he's doing right now if that's quite all right with you."

"He was your friend," George said and Draco shrugged.

"I've got a rather lot of bad choices in my past; would you like me to list them for you alphabetically or in chronological order, or could we, perhaps, skip over the fact that I was raised by a racist ideologue to be a slave to another one and it took a bit for me to shake that off and instead you can just fill me in on my wife's ex-boyfriend." Draco's voice was almost totally controlled through his whole spiel until the end when it became very clear he was having to work to keep from shouting.

"What do you want to know?"

"How you found us and do I need to worry about him doing the same thing. I will keep her safe, Weasley, do you understand?"

"Draco," Theo said, his tone annoyed, "Your paranoia is showing. I've told you more times and more ways than I care to think about that Daphne and George are clean. They weren't tracked here. They're fine."

"How did they find us," Draco demanded.

"Daphne knew you were on the continent somewhere," George said. "She was determined to hit every possible town you might have gone to ground in. She said she knew you'd never have thought to get a place and Blaise would have gone to one of his mother's but, Theo, she said Theo would be smart enough to find a place in some town no one would think to look. Something about some artist."

"Plus, I told her," Theo said. At Draco's furious look he sighed. "I hinted. And I looked for her."

"Did you hint to fucking Pansy too?" Draco snapped. "How about Greg? Or Millie? Or…"

"Only Daphne," Theo said, "and you need to back off."

"Ron's fine," George interrupted them. "He's happy and doing fine. You don't need to worry about him showing up and interrupting whatever bizarre domestic bliss you've found with Hermione." He took a deep breath. "He's happy."

"Happy?" Blaise said the word with disbelief and disgust. "He belongs to Pansy Parkinson and lives in a prison. How can he – "

"He's _happy_," George said again, "and I'd rather not talk about it."

"Is he _Marked_?" Blaise asked, "because if he's Marked we've… when we took the girls to say goodbye... just _shite._"

"Wouldn't matter," Theo shook his head. "We didn't tell him anything, not even that we were planning on skipping town. All he knew what that Draco cared for Hermione as a bit more than a sex slave to be killed off when he got tired of her and, not to make anyone nervous, I'm pretty sure our skipping out and breaking Draco's Mark might have made that obvious anyway."

"He's not Marked," George said. "I… it's not that bad. He's not _evil _-"

"Thanks a lot," Draco muttered.

"- he's just making the best of it and Pansy's not that bad."

Blaise was overtaken by a coughing fit and Draco squinted at George, finally disarmed by that absurd claim. "So, I'm guessing you didn't spend a lot of time with her?" he asked.

"She's a manipulative cunt," Theo said baldly.

"She'd good, though," Blaise admitted. "I bet she ends up on top of whatever power structure that monster puts in place."

George buried his face in his hands. "Am I wrong to be happy for him?" he asked at last and these men, these housemates, all sighed.

"No," Blaise admitted at last. "I mean, she's awful – really awful – but if your brother's her pet, she'll treat him well."

There was another long stretch of silence after that and George grabbed another slice of toast and began spooning marmalade onto it. At least, Draco muttered, "I'm sorry I overreacted when you arrived."

George's hand faltered as he spread the orange marmalade but he just said, 'I can't fault you for wanting to protect Hermione. It's good, really. I'm glad she has someone to look out for her. It's… it's bad at home. I'm glad she's here. Glad you're taking care of her. So glad Ginny is here, too." He swallowed and didn't look up from his bread. "Thanks for taking me and Daph in."

"No problem," Theo said.

. . . . . . . . . .

Daphne trailed after her new housemates feeling more and more confused. Luna – who at least she'd known was a little odd – had taken them all to her room first and pulled out dozens of knickers and piled them into Daphne's arms.

Who even had that many pairs of knickers? And in exile too. It was peculiar.

Ginny had gone next and had pulled dresses and skirts and tops off hangers and dumped them into her arms. "Honestly," the ginger girl had muttered. "I know the boys told that shop to get us complete wardrobes but you'd think they assumed we wouldn't wear anything more than once."

"They probably did," Hermione Granger had said making a face. "Theo did say something about like to tear clothes off."

"Knickers off," Luna said.

Daphne hovered nervously as it became clearer that these new housemates had enough of a shared history that she was the outsider.

"How do you feel about vintage?" Hermione asked when they got to her room and Daphne looked from face to face as all three girls burst into laughter. She was even more confused when the clothes Hermione added to her arms weren't vintage at all, were, in fact, beautifully made and expensive items from this year's collections.

"Your room," Luna said waving Daphne back to the suite that was now her home.

She couldn't fault it. It was beautiful and spacious and airy and everything one might dream. She just felt so lost. Months ago she'd been confident that Harry Potter would win the war because, well, the other option was unthinkable. During the final battle, Theo had pulled her aside and, almost inexplicably, started talking to her about some Muggle artist named Jean Cocteau and the intense look in his eyes had told her to pay attention. "I've always wanted to see his work on St. Peter's Chapel," Theo had said.

She'd searched his face trying to understand.

When he'd married Luna without even taking time to think about his choice she'd realized he'd had a plan.

Well, of course he did.

When she'd been told she'd be married off to George Weasley she'd managed to hide the relief on her face and just murmured, trying to seem as biddable as she could, "Whatever the Dark Lord thinks is best." Her father, pale and tired, had patted her on the hand so obviously grateful she wasn't going to fight him that she'd wanted to cry.

She'd admired the Weasley twins for years. They were so openly unafraid. They were raucous and obnoxious and she'd watched them without seeming to, buying their products when she could and figuring out how they worked. The unapologetic cleverness in their work made her jaw drop open more than once. When she heard that Fred had died she'd assumed George must have died as well.

To think of one of them without the other was barely possible.

To think of one of them married to her was barely possible.

When she saw him waiting at the end of the aisle of their ridiculous wedding she'd felt her heart lurch. 'Mine', she'd thought with sudden avarice. She'd squeezed his hand as the binding ceremony tied them together and he'd swallowed as the magic settled over them. The reception had been terrible with scowling Death Eaters in every corner eating the canapés and threatening her new husband.

"He'd better hope you're fertile," one of them said and her jaw nearly hit the floor. This… lackey… had just commented on her future sex life.

Daphne Weasley nee Greengrass had been raised as an aristocrat and no adult had ever said anything even remotely that crass in her earshot before. Her mother's idea of sex education had been to tell her to lie back and yes it could hurt but just think about the babies.

It had been a fairly depressing conversation to be honest.

Pansy Parkinson's mother had been less grim and had sent her daughter to school with a variety of books – _Muggle_ books, no less – that had filled in the significant gaps in Mrs. Greengrass' sex talk. Daphne and Pansy and Millie had poured over the books for hours, giggling and nervous and talking about their future husbands.

Of course, none of them had expected to be ordered to marry someone at Lord Voldemort's bidding. The idea of admitting to this man she barely knew that she wasn't quite the innocent her mother – and he – probably assumed she was embarrassed her.

Still, however, he was hers and, like all her mates, she took care of what was hers. Embarrassment be damned. That was why, after the Death Eater had smiled at her expression and moved on to terrorize someone else, Daphne had leaned over to George and said, as quietly as she could, "I understand if I ride your cock in the back seat of a Muggle car conception is almost guaranteed so don't worry."

He'd stared at her, shocked, until the first hint of a smile she'd seen on his face since the Battle of Hogwarts tugged at his lips.

That night she'd cast a silencing charm and they'd talked and tried to get to know each other rather than just get on with the baby making. She'd admitted to the Muggle sex books. She'd also admitted that she was pretty sure Theo Nott had a bolt hole in a small town in coastal France and did he want to try to find it. He'd smirked at the first admission but broken down and started to cry at the second. "Yes," he'd said. "Merlin, yes. Get me out of here."

And she had and now she stood in what was to be their room, sorting clothes that three girls she barely knew had given to her and hoping she'd made the right choice.

. . . . . . . . . .

_**A/N – I think this will probably go to about 30 chapters; I'm writing 24 right now and have the end all done. There's just some stuff to fill in in the middle. Gotta write a bit about Ron :) **_

_**With taking on 'Like Brothers' I'm back to not being able to write at a pace that would allow me to update this weekly, that what seems to be daily, and still respond to reviews. I really, really appreciate each and every last one and I encourage all readers to review and review lots. Not just me, everyone you read. We fanfic writers, we write for your responses and they can (and do) make a person's day and inspire them to keep writing.**_


	19. Chapter 19

Draco waited for the explosion. He'd figured out that Luna floated along, trusting the world to right itself, Ginny closed down, and Hermione lashed out.

He expected her to lash out now.

Ron had loved her. She had to have loved the man as well for all that she'd told him she didn't miss the worthless prat. She'd risked her life to see Ron Weasley one last time and he'd told her he loved her and now, not so very long after that, he was married. Happily married, if George Weasley could be believed.

She didn't say anything and didn't explode and that lack of volatility made Draco nervous.

Who was he kidding? How calm she was terrified him. The only reason he could think of for the way she stood and silently stared out their window was that her heart was breaking.

"It's a lot to ask," Draco said at last, his voice quiet in their room. "Asking a man to hold on to love when his world burns around him, when self-preservation suggests that love may be a luxury he can't afford. Don't be too angry Ron couldn't do it. It doesn't make him a bad man."

"Listen to you," Hermione sounded amused though she was still looking out the window and away from him, "defending Ron Weasley."

Draco shrugged, though he knew she couldn't see the gesture. "He's just trying to be happy, the same as you are."

"With Pansy Parkinson?" Hermione turned at last and looked at Draco. "What does she have that's worth loving? She's… vicious and petty and… and… and that shrill voice and she's clingy and – "

"You're the one married to a Death Eater," Draco reminded her. "I don't believe the circles you ran in a year ago exactly considered me a good catch."

"Retired Death Eater," Hermione muttered, turning back to the window, "and you're worth being married to, which is a lot more than I can say for Pansy."

"Am I?" he murmured.

"A lot to ask, you say," she said. "Too much to ask that a man hold on to love when his world falls apart. Too much to ask that he decide he cares more about love than self-preservation. Too much to ask that he give up everything, give up power and wealth and safety and prestige, to save someone who'd never even been nice to him."

Draco approached her and rested his cheek against her hair. "Don't be angry Ron couldn't do it," he said again.

"I'm just grateful you could," she said, pulling his hand to her lips and kissing it.

"Better to serve in heaven than reign in hell," Draco whispered against her hair.

Hermione summoned her courage, something she'd felt like had fled from her forever when she'd seen Harry fall, and said, "Did you feel anything?"

Draco took a step backward, uncertain what she was asking.

She hurried on. "When we… when we consummated our marriage I… the vow. It – "

"- Binding marriage vows are only really locked into place when you consummate the marriage," Draco said. "I'd forgotten, I'm so sorry. We could have… I could have released you fairly easily until –"

"I don't want to be released," Hermione snapped. "I love you, you bloody idiot."

Draco had heard the phrase 'frozen in place' before but he'd always thought it was just a colourful expression. Now, however, he couldn't have moved if the Dark Lord himself had walked into the room.

"Shite," Hermione muttered. "Not the way I'd meant that to come out. Fuck!" The obscenity exploded out of her and she ran her hand through her hair in exasperation. "I haven't done anything right since this whole marriage began." She turned and looked at him and Draco was able to loosen his voice enough to choke out one sentence.

"You love me?"

"When we… when we had sex," Hermione said, "when the vow did its thing, I felt like… like I'd been all alone and someone – you – came up and wrapped me in something warm and it was heavy and, fuck, this sounds so stupid, but it was warm and I felt cared for and like I wasn't alone and… shite. You're just staring at me. You think I've gone round the bloody bend." She turned back to the window. "Maybe I have. You obviously didn't have any crazy sex-fueled revelation."

"You love me?" He said it again, this time in a tone of absolute wonder.

He heard her sniffle and that unlocked his limbs and he stepped forward and reached out and pulled her against him. She turned and buried her head into his chest and he said it a third time, this time as a statement. "You love me."

"Which word was so confusing?" she muttered.

"I felt like you'd grabbed on to my wrist," he said against her. "Like someone was holding me who'd never let go. Like I was _worth _holding onto for the first time in my life."

Hermione hiccupped a little against him and he pulled away and looked at her. Already red and blotchy, she remained the least attractive crier he'd ever seen. "You're so beautiful," he said running his fingers over one cheekbone and smearing away the tears.

"I'm sorry I… that has to be the worst declaration of love ever."

"I'll take it," Draco said. "Trust me, I'll take it."

"You are worth holding on to, you know," she said, her eyes searching his face. "I've known a lot of good men –"

"Could we not sing Potter's praises right now?" Draco asked rather desperately. "I can take having you shout obscenities at me as you declare your love, but I'd rather not have to be compared to your best friend, the nearly perfect boy against whom I've always come up short."

"- And you're one of them," she finished, ignoring his interruption. "One of the best of them." She pushed herself tightly into his arms again and said, "I'm never letting you go, Draco Malfoy. I love you and, in case you hadn't noticed, I'm a tad stubborn and I don't tend to let stuff drop."

"Not even me," he whispered.

"Certainly not you," she agreed.

"I love you, too," he murmured. "I…remember the secret I told you I'd tell you if I survived the Mark?" She nodded against him. "I was going to tell you I've… I've loved you for years. That I'd do anything for you. That even though I thought you'd never so much as… I didn't expect you to ever even tolerate me, much less like me, but I told myself I had to save you anyway. Had to pull you out of that hell and keep you safe even if it meant you'd hate me forever. I'd decided I'd rather you hate me as a Death Eater keeping you safe and alive and whole than know you were suffering at someone else's hands."

"This… this whole stupid plan," Hermione said, looking at him with wonder in her eyes. "It was all – "

"All for you," he said quietly. "All to keep you safe. I had to get the others drunk to agree to it but I've… this… all for you."

"And I threw things _at your head_," she said, sounding horrified. "I told you I _hated_ you."

"The first day of our marriage was not, I think, the best, no," Draco said, holding her tightly. "But, in all fairness, you thought I intended to – " He stopped, unable to continue. "It was a reasonable fear," he conceded. "You behaved like a reasonable person would, married to a man she thought hated her, one who was a member of a violent cult of murdering rapists."

"Well," she said, a teasing note creeping into her voice, "when you put it like that."

"Do you really love me?" he asked.

"So much," she said. She leaned back and looked at him. "However, I do have one suggestion to make."

Draco braced himself.

"The sex," she said, "this time I think I get to come too."

Draco felt the ridiculous grin that took over his face. "I can work on that," he said. "I think I mentioned I'm good at adapting and adjusting things."

"But not so good at research, you said, yes," Hermione said, tipping her head to the side. "I think this is more in the line of practical experimentation than abstract reading so it might play to your strengths."

Draco smirked as he began to unbutton her blouse. "But what about you? How will you fare with no library of books to call upon to figure things out via endless research?"

"I suppose," she said, "you'll have to offer me instruction."

Draco licked his lips as he pulled her shirt down and tossed it aside. "I think I can do that," he said. "What area of study do you want to concentrate on first?"

. . . . . . . . . .

They missed the article because it was tucked into the society section. They scanned the main news section of the paper every day to censor it. Draco knew that Hermione knew. He also knew she was grateful. All the women knew and he suspected they were just as happy to stay sheltered.

Things had been hard. So very hard. There had been so much death and so much trauma. They were all still getting used to not looking over their shoulders for Snatchers. They were all still eating the rich foods the elves made to fatten everyone back up. Ginny had asked once whether she could maybe have something lighter and the elf she'd talked to had wailed and sobbed and told her, in between praising her kindness and bemoaning his own failure as a cook that, no, she couldn't. She'd eat what the elves thought was good for her and she'd like it.

She'd glared at Blaise who'd looked at her with an innocent smile until she'd laughed.

They all wanted to let the sun soak into them and heal the fears and so they all pretended not to notice their husbands hid the paper until it had been purged of anything upsetting and they just read about new tonics to straighten the hair and a garden show in Chelsea and didn't comment that there seemed to be nothing about the Ministry or politics.

But the article that made it clear Greg Goyle had killed Parvati Patil was buried in the society section and they missed it.

All it said was that 'bachelor' Greg Goyle had been seen in London, out drinking with his friends. There was a speculation about what lucky girl would catch his eye.

"I thought he was married to Parvati," Ginny said in a choked voice, passing the paper to Daphne.

"He was," the other woman said, paling as she read the single line in the gossip section.

"Divorce?" Ginny asked with almost no hope in her voice. "Or maybe she ran away and they can't find her?"

Blaise looked at her and swallowed hard. "Maybe," was all he said.

Hermione pushed her chair back and fled to the bathroom where they could all hear her retching over the toilet. Draco followed her and shut the door behind him but not before they all saw him pull her hair back away from her face for her, not before they all saw him summon a damp washcloth and wipe her face.

"He killed her, didn't he?" Luna asked.

"Probably," Theo said. "He always liked Unforgiveables."

Ginny shook as she rose and began to make her way to the garden. George looked at Blaise and then followed her. "Gin," he said as they walked down the worn stone steps. "I'm so sorry."

"There's nothing we can do, is there?" she said as she leaned against her big brother.

"Maybe it was fast," he said but Ginny Weasley shook her head.

"He tortured her from the moment he married her, didn't he? He beat her and cursed her and they told him to stop and he didn't and now she's dead and they're just going to give him another girl and tell him to be more careful with this one, aren't they?"

George nodded. "That was the world I saw," he admitted. "They'll probably watch him more closely with the next one because they do want a new generation, but he won't be punished for… for killing his wife. Accidents happen is what people will say and they won't look too closely.

Ginny buried her face against her brother and he hugged her tightly. "You're safe, Gin," he said. "That husband of yours made you safe."

Not my husband, she thought.

. . . . . . . . . .

When Ginny returned to the table she grabbed a piece of toast and, by the look she gave him, Blaise knew she wanted him to follow her.

"Are you okay?" he asked, cursing himself for not having any better words to use. Are you going to wall yourself away from me again, he wanted to ask. Are you going to start crying every afternoon again? I'm so sorry I let you see that, I'll do better next time.

She didn't talk until they were down in the garden away from everyone. "I want to get married," she said and he stared at her, mouth agape.

"Ginny," he said, "we are married."

"No we aren't," she said. "I buggered up that vow right and proper."

He put a hand on her arm and began, "There's really no way to know –" but she cut him off.

"When Hermione and Draco _finally_ consummated their stupidly passionate love/hate thing she felt the binding vow tighten. She _felt_ the magic. I didn't feel anything when we… so we aren't married."

Blaise swallowed hard as he looked at the woman next to him. "And you want to be?" he asked.

"Yes," she said. "Find a way to marry me and we'll do it here, next to this hideously improbable statue, and then we'll… and you'll be tied to me forever and you'll be mine."

Blaise Zabini pulled the woman who apparently wasn't his wife into his arms and murmured into her hair, "I think I can do that."

. . . . . . . . . .

_**A/N – I'm so close to the end of this I can feel it. I think 26-27 chapters, maybe 28, will be the final count.**_

_**I hope you are still enjoying this.**_

_**I'm recommending Aca-demic Arrangements (by dulce de leche go and linked out of my favorites) to EVERYONE because it is such an utter, absolute delight.**_


	20. Chapter 20 (Ginny's Wedding)

"But you are married," Daphne said, wondering if this sister-in-law she barely knew had lost a bit of her mind due to the stress of the war. "In the Great Hall, remember?"

Ginny shook her head. "I, uh, I cast counter spells during the ceremony. It didn't take."

Daphne sank down onto the unattractive chintz loveseat in the room she'd started to think of as the 'winter parlour' and stared at Ginny. "Does Blaise know?" she asked at last thinking to herself that Blaise would lose his own mind if he found out that he wasn't truly married to this woman that he obviously adored.

"I told him," Ginny said.

"Oh," Daphne looked down and began to twist her skirt in her hands. "How did that go?"

"Well, I coupled it with how I wanted us to really _get_ married so it went okay," Ginny said and Daphne could feel herself sigh out with relief.

"You really care about him," Ginny observed.

Daphne nodded. "It's not a… we've been friends since we were kids. I'm not… I love your brother. I really do. Blaise is just… he's my friend. I'd hate to see him… he's crazy about you, you know?"

Ginny muttered something and when Daphne made a 'huh' noise she said, "Yeah, I know. Stupid git."

"But you want to marry him," Daphne confirmed. "You want me to plan a wedding."

"It'll have to be small," Ginny said. "Just us. Just the garden. But," she hesitated and looked at the other girl, "Do you know how to make it nice? Something like what Blaise would have expected to have? I don't… we didn't… my family wasn't like yours. We didn't have money or… I don't know what would have even been normal for him."

Daphne thought about what Blaise's wedding would have been like if there had been no war: the caterers, the expensive venue, a bride in a dress that would have cost what some people earned in a year. She looked at this sister-in-law, her ginger hair tied back into a sloppy pony-tail, this girl who was in hiding with her in this house. She knew Ginny had yet to extend so much as a finger-tip past the wards since she'd gotten into the house. She didn't blame her. She thought about the walled garden with the dead grasses and the dust and the really awful statue and trying to create something special with whatever they could find.

"I think I can do that," she said. "Better, even."

Ginny smiled at her, a tremulous almost-grin that brought an answering smile to Daphne's face.

"Get Luna," Daphne said. "I'll need to talk to the elves."

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Ginny grimaced as Luna fussed with her dress. "I wasn't prepared for this," she admitted as the woman transfigured the fabric again.

"You wanted a wedding," Daphne said from where she lounged on the bed. She and Luna had sketched dresses for days before coming up with what they wanted. "Just don't let anyone do a finite around you or you'll end up back in that twenties monstrosity of Hermione's."

"I wonder if that's the basis of the Cinderella myth," Hermione said.

"Who?" Ginny asked.

"Merlin," Hermione muttered. "I need to get you people a book of Muggle fairy tales. She's a girl who's been effectively orphaned and is being raised by an abusive stepmother. The local prince has a ball for the sole purpose of finding a wife and the stepmother won't let her go, even tears her dress to shreds."

"Why?" Luna asked, waving her wand and adding another flourish to the dress she was creating.

"Didn't want competition for her own daughters. Cinderella's pretty and nice and all the desirable qualities. I mean, she basically doesn't have a personality. She's just 'good' and her stepsisters are unattractive physically and personally. Anyway, a fairy godmother shows up and turns her rags into a beautiful dress and gives her glass slippers –"

"Glass?" Daphne asked. "That's stupid."

"Tell me about it," Hermione agreed. "Though I'm usually more annoyed about the bit where the godmother let her languish in poverty and abuse but, hey, you want to dance with the prince. I can help out with that."

Luna said, "but that's the part that makes sense. Fairies are always most helpful with things that seem the least important. They're odd creatures."

"What happens to the dress," Ginny asked.

"At midnight it turns back to rags, kind of like yours will if anyone finites it."

"Still," Ginny said, looking at herself in the mirror as Luna continued to consult the sketches she and Daphne had made and work on the dress, "I think I'll risk it. This is pretty glorious, Luna."

"Thank you," the woman said.

. . . . . . . . . .

"You are married," Theo said.

"Apparently not," Blaise replied. "Apparently she counter-charmed the spells so effectively we aren't."

Theo shook his head. "You are. Normal people don't even use binding ceremonies, mate. You said vows in front of a Ministry official, he filed the paperwork; you two are legally married even if the magic portion didn't hold." He squinted at Blaise. "Or is the problem you want the binding, because , if so, that's sick. I can't let you do that to her, Blaise. She's barely recovered from that horror show; you can't go covering her all up in spells so she can't leave. That's not right."

Blaise looked at his outraged friend, ready to argue with him on Ginny's behalf and sighed. "You do realize her brother is here, right? You don't have to defend her. She has family right here to do that for her."

Theo was still scowling and Blaise held a hand out. "I'm not even the one driving this," he added. "She is. She's up there right now doing something with Daphne about a dress. I've been told that I am not allowed to see it until the wedding day but that my job is to find someone to do the spells. Having George do it seems weird and all the girls seem to be already cast as bridesmaids. Draco's too much of an arse so I thought I'd ask you."

"To do the binding spell?"

"That's right."

"Because Ginny wants it?"

"That, again, would be right."

Theo sighed. "I'm sorry I assumed the worst."

"You should be," Blaise muttered. He'd gone out of his way to be gentle with this witch from, well, if not day one than day two. To be accused of trying to chain her with magic when he was just trying to make her happy was hard to take. "You'll do it then?"

"Sure," Theo said. He took a deep breath. "Honored." He looked at Blaise. "A real wedding, huh?"

"By that goat statue. The one with the swan doing, well, I'm not sure what."

"I guess this explains why the elves have taken a sudden interest in gardening." They both glanced down into the walled and terraced garden, which had been transformed, almost overnight, from a weed filled dust bowl to a lush and inviting place filled with blooms, including a selection of the plants Luna had coveted.

"Freaky little things," Theo muttered as he looked over their work.

. . . . . . . . . .

The air smelled like rain the day they'd planned the wedding. "Petrichor," Draco said as all the men stood by the statue and waited.

"What?" Theo asked him, his fingers nervously running around and around the hooves of the little stone goat.

"That's this smell," Draco said. "There's a word for it. Petrichor."

"Did you used to sit around and read the dictionary or something?" George asked.

Draco gave him a nasty look. "My mother liked this smell," he said. "You know, the woman who encouraged me to get out, who probably burned my name off the family tapestry to ensure she looked innocent of my defection but who might have been tortured anyway?"

George shuffled his feet and looked over the wall, out toward the water, as he muttered, "Sorry."

"Think nothing of it," Draco said, his tone acidic.

"Could you two behave," Theo muttered. "It's Blaise's wedding day."

Draco sighed and crossed his arms as he looked up at the patio and waited for the women to arrive. When Luna, Hermione, and Daphne finally appeared all four of the men straightened up and watched. They'd somehow transfigured robes they had into a set of matching yellow dresses. The color was glorious on Luna, indifferent on Daphne, and made Hermione look sallow. Draco had to repress the urge to cast a finite and see what happened and he promised himself he'd get Hermione to let him do one later in the privacy of their rooms.

Ginny followed them, a small nosegay in her hands, and Draco goggled at her. He couldn't imagine how many transfiguration charms they'd had to do to create that dress. She looked as if she were standing in a swirl of falling, silken rose petals that spun and fluttered around her feet as she picked her way down the stone steps and toward her waiting friends. As she picked up the skirt to safely get over some of the irregularities in the steps Draco saw her feet were bare. Shoes, apparently, had been more than they could figure out how to make. Still, other than that she looked exactly like what a high society pureblood bride would look like, if, perhaps, a little too happy for most of the weddings that had happened in Britain over the last few months. He glanced over at Blaise who looked gobsmacked and nervous at the same time. Draco felt his mouth twitch up in a grin he tried to repress; the creature who was gliding toward them was a far cry from the blood stained, terrified girl Blaise had scooped up back at Hogwarts.

Theo exhaled. "You ready," he asked Blaise in a low voice.

"Yeah," the man said. "Try not to fuck it up, okay?"

"Such faith," Theo said and then Ginny had reached them. She went to take Blaise's hands and then frowned at the flowers she was still holding. Hermione darted forward and snatched them from the woman's grip before scooting back to stand with Draco. Draco wrapped an arm around her and felt her lean into his side as Theo cleared his throat.

"So," Theo said. "We're here today to bind this man and this woman into an unbreakable magical covenant. Does anyone have a reason we shouldn't, uh, do this?"

George shifted uneasily from one foot to the other and Draco saw Daphne elbow him as discreetly as she could.

"All right, then," Theo continued. "Since no one has any objections I'll go on." He pulled out his wand and, with a muttered, "Here goes nothing," began to perform something akin to the binding ceremonies they'd all experienced, most at the side of a battlefield, Daphne and George as players in a different sort of war. Draco could feel Hermione grab his hand and squeeze it and he looked down and was shocked to see she was fighting back tears. He looked over at Luna, standing alone and watching Theo with a small, bitter smile and then back at Hermione. He hadn't thought either of them – any of them – would have been so sentimental about this.

When Theo finished the spell he asked, "Did it work? Did you feel it?" and Blaise nodded before scooping Ginny up into his arms for the ceremonial kissing of the bride to be followed tonight, Draco assumed, by the consummation of the vow. After she kissed Blaise, Ginny turned to Luna who pulled her into a tight hug, one which quickly became a group hug with all four women holding onto one another and sobbing.

"Why are they crying," Draco hissed to Theo. "I thought she wanted this."

Theo looked at him. "Are you really this much of an idiot?" he asked. At Draco's blank look he muttered, "Ask Hermione later."

George cleared his throat. "Can I get you all to stop with the wailing so we can eat? There's a whole table of things up there that the elves made and I, at least, have been slapped at least three times today by elves whose names I don't even know."

"That's because you tried to steal some of the food," Daphne said, letting go of the other women and brushing moisture away from her eyes. "You deserved it."

"Maybe," George said, exaggerated doubt in his voice. "But how they could resist my sad face I don't know."

"Well, I can't," Daphne said, "Let's go. I think they even found champagne down in the cellar though who knows how old it is. It might be vinegar by now."

The lot of them trooped back up the stairs to the wedding feast. The champagne was still good, the cake was a masterpiece, and if there was, perhaps, more crying than Draco could ever, _ever_ remember seeing at a wedding before, especially a wedding of two people who were, as he muttered to himself, already bloody married, no one mentioned it over dinner.

That night, after Hermione let him finite her unattractive yellow bridesmaid dress back to a far more appealing sundress, after she'd taken that dress off and donned pajamas that said very clearly that she wasn't interested in anything approaching consummation, he asked her why they'd all cried so much.

She studied him for a few moments and he closed his eyes. "Because you didn't get one," he said, finally understanding. "Not really. Because yours was fear instead of joy."

She nodded and he pulled her to him as tightly as he could. "That bastard," he muttered. "I hate him so much. He just ruins everything he touches, like some kind of mold slowly creeping over the walls."

Hermione rested her cheek against him. "I just hope I never have to see him again," she said softly.

. . . . . . . . . .

**A/N – It's all done but for the proofreading! Yay! It worked out to 26 chapters total.  
**

**Thank you for all the lovely reviews. You are all my lemonade on a hot day, my gingerbread cookie at Christmas, my afternoon at beach.**


	21. Chapter 21

The morning post contained a neatly folded document that Draco opened, his hands calm even as the skin around his eyes tensed as he looked over the paperwork.

"What is it?" Hermione asked.

He slid the papers across the table to her. "It, my dear, is proof that you're a half blood."

"Don't be ridiculous," Hermione said, wrinkling her nose. "I'm not."

"You know that," Draco agreed, "and I know that, but in the eyes of the Ministry of Magic of our fair, dystopian land, you are now officially the grandchild of several squibs." He smiled at her. "Not that your mother knew, of course, but it's well known that squibs can have descendents who show magic again and that's what you are." He pulled the papers back toward himself. "It helps that the grandparents in question are dead and your mother is conveniently missing so she can't be questioned."

"Draco," Hermione drew his name out as she stared at him. "What have you done?"

He smiled at her. "I've filed false paperwork with the Ministry establishing your family background. You're still trash, my love. The descendents of squibs are not exactly desirable but they aren't Muggle-borns and thus you won't need to wear a big fat M on your clothing in Britain and there's no justification for snapping your wand." He shrugged. "Just in case."

Hermione looked over at Blaise, who'd been ignoring the conversation as he helped himself to the scones. "Does this make sense to you?" she asked.

Blaise slid down in his chair. "False documents," he said. "If you ever ended up back in Britain you could insist they look them up and there they'd be, filed and dusty, proof that you were an acceptable citizen."

"And why didn't I know about this before?" Hermione demanded.

"Obviously you only found out when you were on the continent," Draco said. "Or maybe you always knew and didn't think it should matter. You've always been self-righteous enough people will believe that." He looked over at her. "You aren't mad, are you?"

"How did you manage this?" Hermione demanded. "We've been _here_."

"It was my mother's idea," Draco admitted. "She –"

"Your mother's idea?" Hermione interrupted him, her mouth agape. "Your blood-purist mother?"

The look Draco gave her was scathing. "My mother would do anything for me," he said. "Including accepting a daughter-in-law who wasn't a pureblood." He shifted in his seat and pulled a slice of toast onto his plate with unnecessary vigor and his hand almost slammed the knife with the marmalade down when he was done. "She loves me, as hard as that may be for you to – "

"I'm sorry," Hermione cut him off. "I… I wish I could thank her, that's all."

Draco took a bite of his toast before he said, his voice very calm, "I can see how, if most of your contact with my parents has been with my father, her actions might be hard to believe."

"Whoa," Blaise said, sounding amused, "Did you two actually have a disagreement that didn't end in screaming and broken shite?"

They both glared at him and he held his hands up in mock surrender. "It's like they promised us in that puberty thing we had to go to third year. Boys and girls really DO grow up."

"Don't make me hurt you," Draco muttered.

"So," Hermione asked again, "how _did_ you manage this?"

"It was my mother," Draco said, his trademark smirk on his face. "Once she knew what we planned she began acquiring forged documents and stashing them in the Ministry." Hermione made a face at him and he added, "Imperius and obliviate, obviously. They're filed, Hermione. You're a genuine half-blood." He snorted. "It's just mocked-up ancestry, not anything real, but it's not like there's a spell or anything to find out if it's true or not."

"She…"

"She defied the Dark Lord for me, yes," Draco said. "And for you."

Hermione slouched back in her chair and stared at him. "I don't know what to say," she said. "You… she… how long have you been working on this?"

"Months," he said. "More."

Blaise made a rude noise at both of them as he opened the paper and began to read it. He frowned at something and took a middle section and carefully pulled it away from the rest of the paper and, folding it up, set it under his seat. Hermione leaned down and reached for it.

"Do you really want to do that?" Blaise asked, his voice low.

"I can't hide forever," she said.

"You could," he said. "If you wanted." But she shook her head and slid the paper across the stone floor of their little breakfast area until she could easily pick it up. While she did that Draco poured her a cup of tea and sweetened it, watching her with worried eyes.

It took her only a few moments to find the offending article and she began to shake her head. "No," she said. "That's not right." She pushed the chair back from the table, the paper trembling in her hands and stood up. "Not another one. No."

She fled up the stairs and Blaise said, simply, "Shite."

. . . . . . . . . .

Daphne spent the morning locked in her room. Not even George could get her to open her door and he paced and swore and muttered as Daphne and Hermione and Luna and Ginny huddled away behind that closed door. There had been screaming at first, rage and despair mixed together, and then sobbing, and then silence. Finally, most terrifying of all, there had been the sound of low voices talking.

"Only two of them are Gryffindors," Blaise said as the men gathered in the main sitting area. "And Ginny's terrified of that monster."

"So's Hermione," Draco said.

"They won't come up with anything idiotic and noble and brave," Blaise said, as if reassuring himself. "They'll rage and grieve and sob but they know that can't do anything." He repeated himself. "They know they can't."

George watched him with steady eyes but didn't say anything other than, "I hope you're right."

"You aren't," Theo said. He'd asked the elves to send sandwiches upstairs at lunch, had choked his own down without tasting it, and had opened up a bottle of whiskey and was pouring it around. No one turned down a glass. "How could you be so stupid," he finally said, turning to Blaise. "You practically dared her to look at it. They were perfectly happy to pretend they didn't know we were censoring the news as long as we didn't rub it in their faces and you had to go and… you idiot."

"I didn't think she'd pick it up," Blaise muttered. "Ginny wouldn't have."

"Why couldn't you have slept in," Theo continued. "Have a nice morning shag or something?"

He walked over to the window and peered out. The gardens the elves had created for Blaise's wedding were still lush and inviting. The wall protected them from prying eyes and if he looked over it he could see the water. The women hadn't even dared to leave the protection of this shelter to go get croissants. They hadn't even left to go to the beach. Surely, he told himself, surely they wouldn't make damn fool plans to do something noble and doomed. Even if they wanted to, they'd be too afraid. Everything would be fine.

Everything would be _fine_.

"We're fucked," Draco said, his voice low. "You know we are. They're up there _thinking_."

"They can think all they want," Theo said, his voice just as low. "It doesn't mean any of us are going to be able to do anything about it. Yes, it's wrong. It's all wrong. But going back would be suicide. They know that. There's nothing left for them there. Hermione's parents are safely obliviated and the last thing she would want to do is call attention to them. Ginny's family is dead, escaped, or tucked into some Death Eater's family. Luna's father is dead. And Daphne's…" But there he trailed off.

"Hermione _robbed a bank_," Draco said. "She was prepared to gut me with broken pottery. She's unstoppable when she decides she's going to do something; you know that. And she's got a thing about helping people." He'd clenched his jaw and was obviously trying not to break down. "It's what I love about her," he choked out.

"Then fucking obliviate her," Theo snapped. "We can start with reason if they talk themselves into something stupid and then just obliviate all of them if that doesn't work and cancel the subscription to the paper and make this all go away." He glared around the room, looking for a sympathetic face. "We can make this all go away."

Neither Draco nor George would make eye contact with him but Blaise shook his head. "Don't be daft. I'm not going to oblivate Ginny and I know you won't raise a hand against Luna."

Theo drained his glass and poured himself another one before returning to staring out the window. He stood there, unmoving, Draco at his side until they heard the door open upstairs. Blaise rose out of his seat and took an uneasy step toward the archway leading into the sitting room and then stood there, awkward and nervous as he waited. George didn't even stand up, he just buried his face in his hands as though he knew what was coming.

Hermione entered the room first, the paper back in both of her hands. It had been crumpled and smoothed out more than once by the look of it. The others stood behind her.

"We have to go get her," Hermione said. "We can't let Greg Goyle have Daphne's little sister."

The argument lasted for hours. They pointed out the risks, the fears, that they would all probably get caught. "We're safe here," Theo said desperately. "He doesn't know where we are."

He and Blaise exchanged guilty looks at that assertion. They'd never quite forgotten the photo that had waved at them. Waved at _them, _aware in a way photos weren't supposed to be able to be. Magic's weird, Blaise had said when they'd all been back in Britain. _His_ magic's weird.

Still, that they might not be as safe as they'd hoped, as safe as they claimed, was no reason to rush back into Britain.

"I agree he's a monster," Draco said at last, desperately. "Hermione, that's what I'm trying to save you from. That's what you're safe from, here. Don't do this."

She just looked at him. "You saved me," she said at last, her voice very quiet. "Am I supposed to just sit here, be safe, and not try to do anything to save anyone else?"

. . . . . . . . . .

Daphne had wanted to throw up from the moment she saw the announcement in the paper. How could her parents do that? How could they send her little sister off to live with that monster? He'd killed his first wife. He'd probably kill Astoria too.

What made it worse was that she suspected it was her fault. Her family was surely in disgrace because of the way she'd fled and what a way to punish her parents for not keeping a tighter rein on her, what a way to warn everyone else. Go ahead and defect. Your family will pay the price.

What kept her from just crumpling was Hermione Granger's rage. The woman had been furious, almost incandescent as she'd stalked back and forth across the floor of Daphne's room, fulminating about how this could not be allowed to happen. That fucking Greg Goyle, she'd said, and that worthless monster of a Minister. They couldn't do this. Not to some innocent little girl. It was wrong.

"You don't even know my sister," Daphne had protested at one point.

"I knew Parvati," Hermione had said. "I knew Padma. I knew Lavender. I knew Hannah and Cho and Katie and…and… it's not _right_. We can't just sit here – I can't just sit here – and let people suffer when I could stop it. When I could _try_."

Luna had nodded. "So we go back," she'd said with calm certainty, as though there had never been any question. "Ginny?"

The ginger girl had swallowed hard and closed her eyes before she'd whispered, "We go back."

That was when Daphne had begun to cry. "I can't let you risk this," she'd said. "You're safe here. Safe."

Hermione had glared at her and Daphne had shrunk back under the heat of that gaze. "How do you plan to stop us?" she'd said.

Daphne had nodded. "I can apparate into the Greengrass Manor," she'd whispered. "Once we're close enough. Once we're in Britain." She'd laughed a little. "Manor' such a pretentious word. My fucking family. It's just a big house but they had to feel like they could compete with the Malfoys and the Notts and the like, but I can get us past the wards."

"Theo know how to make portkeys," Luna had said. "Once we convince the boys to not argue about this, he can get us to Britain and then back."

They'd spent the next several hours planning out their strategy. They ate the sandwiches their worried husbands sent up without paying attention to the taste; they drew maps. Finally, they were ready and they went downstairs, tears dried, faces grim.

. . . . . . . . . .

"So we go back," Draco said, arms around her. "You're going to go back and get that girl."

"I can't just do nothing," Hermione whispered against his chest. "I can't be that person."

"I know," he said, helplessly.

. . . . . . . . . .

**A/N – What? Like you didn't see this coming?**


	22. Chapter 22

The plan went flawlessly right until the moment that everything went to hell.

All eight of them portkeyed back to Britain to a small hunting lodge that Draco had insisted no one in his family ever really used. Based on the undisturbed dust he hadn't been mistaken, and, seeing that, they all began to relax. This would be fine. No one knew they were here. No one would stop them. Daphne and George apparated off to Greengrass Manor to fetch Astoria, Luna and Theo behind them. The plan was simple enough; get the girl, grab a spare wand for George if one could be found, get out. The other four planned to just hold tight unless they got a panicked message that the main group needed back up. Then they'd meet back here and portkey back home as a group. Safety, they thought, in numbers.

Simple. Easy. And it was going so well. The first team disappeared and the other four began to wander around one of the rooms in the small lodge, waiting, nerves taut, for either a message or the return of their friends. They took books on and off shelves, sat down on the leather chairs and then stood up again, poked their heads into the little guest toilet off the room and admired the blue and white tiles.

Then the trap was sprung.

"Son," Lucius Malfoy said from doorway, "what an unexpected pleasure. When I was alerted someone had broken into this little camp I wondered if it might be you returning home and thought I'd come and check. Did you bring your little kitten? I hope so because I know someone who wants to talk to her."

Hermione nearly hissed but hands covered her mouth and a bag went over her head and her wand was out of her grasp and tossed to the floor before she could react, before she heard more than a horrified intake of breath from Draco, and she was sucked away via portkey.

When she landed the bag was pulled off her head and she was not surprised to see she was in some large hall surrounded by Death Eaters. That they seemed almost uninterested in her was what threw her. "The Malfoy brat's girl?" one of them asked, consulting, of all things, a clipboard. "Yeah, I heard that plan finally got put into motion. She goes into a cell. Lucius should have the rest of them." Her captors, masks in place, hauled her through a door, down some stairs and then along a hall. One wall was more of the cold stone that had been used to build the stairs, the other was a series of bars blocking off a row of small cells. Hermione tried to memorize the route, which was easy enough, and to get a sense of where she was, which was impossible, before she was shoved into the fourth cell and the door was locked behind her. The Death Eaters regarded her for a minute and then one of them shrugged and they walked away and left her, unmolested and unhurt, on the floor of what was, she supposed, her new home.

She pulled herself onto the cot and, curling into a ball, began to cry.

. . . . . . . .

Draco watched the flunkeys haul his wife away and turned to his father. "If a single hair on that woman's head is harmed I will personally burn Malfoy Manor to the ground. The line ends with me if she's not mine so there'll be no point in having an oversized house anymore."

"Don't be dramatic," Lucius said. "You've always had an unfortunate tendency towards hysteria, Draco." The man looked over at Blaise and sighed. "I would have expected better of you, however, young Mr. Zabini."

"I'm not fond of oppressive regimes," Blaise drawled as he calmly placed his body between Lucius Malfoy and Ginny. "Call me conservative but I rather liked things the way they were when I wasn't at the risk of being a bit of branded cattle."

Lucius shrugged and walked into the room. Settling himself into a leather chair he said, "Times change and a pragmatic man changes with them." He shot the cowering Ginny a look of irritation. "No one's going to hurt you, you silly child. Go make babies with your swain here. That's all anyone wants."

"How many?" Draco asked as he bent down and picked up Hermione's wand. At Lucius' raised eyebrow he clarified, "How many Death Eaters are surrounding us?"

"Enough," Lucius said. "Don't be stupid, son, just make yourself comfortable. I think we can expect to be visiting for a few days at least. Your 'wife' needs to take a meeting, as they say, and until time can be found for that we'll all simply have to enjoy one another's company."

"You plan to just keep us here?" Ginny's voice shook but her eyes narrowed and Blaise watched her, worry growing in the pit of his stomach.

"For a bit," Lucius acknowledged. "And in this room, I'm sorry to say, or the toilet right off it. If I let you wander about I'm sure you'll end up running off. We're all so happy you're back in your home country we don't want that to happen; you young people are the hope of the future and all."

Blaise and Draco exchanged looks and then Blaise deliberately turned his back on Lucius Malfoy and began to rummage through the shelves of the dusty study. "I don't suppose you have a chess set around here, Draco? I know the Malfoys don't really go in for intellectual pursuits but if we're going to be hostages for a few days we might consider passing the time doing something other than reading tomes on – ," he pulled a book off one shelf and read the title with disdain – "_Common Magical Garden Pests."_

Draco knelt down, opened a cupboard, and pulled out a set. Both men ignored Lucius Malfoy and set the game up on a table across the room from their warden. Blaise pulled Ginny onto his lap and said, "As unfair as it is to unite ourselves against blondie here, why don't you play on my side."

"I'm always on your side," Ginny said.

"As I'm on yours," Blaise replied, his arm around her and his eyes rather coldly not looking anywhere but at the board in front of him. He and Draco brushed fingers as they set up the pieces and Draco, his back to his father, mouthed, "We wait?"

"For now," Blaise said, setting up a pawn, "I'm a little peckish. Malfoy," he raised his voice and called out to the older man. "Do you plan to starve us or can you order in a spread? I'm not quite sure what the etiquette is on how a proper aristocratic ponce such as your august self treats people he's holding against their will. We don't do things like this in my family, you see."

Lucius twitched a bit but rose and walked steadily to the door. He stuck his head out and gave orders to a man on the other side. Ginny glared at the man as he walked by and Blaise tightened his grip on her. "No heroics," he murmured in her ear. "Not yet."

She rested her head against his shoulder and nodded. "Your queen's in the wrong place," she said, switching the pieces for him. "It'll be hard to win without her where she needs to be."

"Thanks," Blaise said.

. . . . . . . . . .

A Death Eater brought dinner in and set it out on the table closer to Lucius. Blaise picked Ginny off his lap and set her to one side. Crossing over to Lucius he made her a plate, causing the older Malfoy to ask in a cold drawl whether blood traitors were too lacking in manners to eat at the table with the rest of the adults.

Blaise looked at the man, a long, steady gaze that never faltered, and said, "I prefer her not to have to eat with murdering pigs."

Lucius lifted his hands and made a display of clapping slowly. Then he said, "Yet you'd kill me in a heartbeat if you thought it would aid your escape. I know you're young but could you try not to be quite so naïve and self-righteous?"

Blaise turned away and brought Ginny her dinner without speaking.

Draco sat down with his father and began to cut into a slice of roast beef. "How's mother?" he asked.

Lucius lifted a forkful of carrots into his mouth, chewed and swallowed before he answered. "She's fine," he said at last. "She misses you, of course."

"And I miss her," Draco said with grave courtesy. "She would be welcome to join me abroad at any time."

"And me?" Lucius asked, pouring himself a glass of wine, a drink he did not offer to any of the three prisoners. "Am I equally welcome to join you and your merry band of malcontents?"

Draco paused, his fork halfway to his mouth, and said, "No." He chewed and swallowed his own mouthful of food before adding into the silence, "I'm afraid I can't quite trust you, you see, especially with my wife."

Lucius snorted at that. "I suppose, all things considered, it's just as well you plan to keep that toy of yours. When you married her I thought surely you were acting out some peculiar boyhood domination fantasy, not selecting an equal partner. And boys will be boys so…." Lucius made an airy wave with his hand as if to say that forcibly marrying and repeatedly raping a childhood rival was an understandable youthful quirk but that he had assumed that surely, when Draco was bored, he'd simply kill the woman and get a proper wife.

Draco controlled himself with some effort. "I think you quite illustrate my point, father."

Lucius shrugged and continued to eat and the meal continued in tense silence until Draco pushed his empty plate back and said, "If you'll excuse me," and went to the small guest toilet off the study. Once behind the shut door he pulled the curtain aside and glanced out the window to confirm that there were multiple, bored, Death Eaters standing something resembling guard but that none of them were paying particular attention the window. He let the curtain drop and sagged against the wall and began to shake. He gave himself a whole minute to just shudder until he slammed his self-control back into place, splashed cold water on his face, and used the toilet.

Before he went back into the study he touched his fingers to the wand that was still at his waist. No one had even tried to disarm them.

That was unsettling.

Not that the three of them could realistically take on his father and a passel of even inattentive Death Eaters.

Still.

Something was going on.

. . . . . . . . . .

When it got dark and Ginny began to yawn Draco and Blaise, in silent, tacit agreement, pushed the chess set to the side and began to calmly transfigure one corner of the room into a moderately comfortable bed. "All that practice at this proved to be valuable," Blaise said, kissing Ginny's head.

"So glad I could be helpful," she said, the quip making Blaise smile a little as he looked down at her.

Draco just eyed his father and waited for the man to say something – to say anything – but he seemed wholly disinterested in continuing their earlier conversation. Draco wanted to shake the man and demand to know where Hermione was, what was happening to her. He couldn't believe, would not allow himself to believe, that anything was happening to her. Someone – clearly the Dark Lord – wanted to speak to her and she would be fine until he had time to turn his attention to a captive he probably wanted broken down by fear first.

A few days, Lucius had said. They had a few days to get out, to find Hermione before that sodding bastard found time for her in his schedule, and to return home. He could portkey back now but hell would freeze before he left her here on this blasted island without him.

He wondered if Blaise would take Ginny and go.

Wondered if Ginny would agree to be taken.

He suspected she wouldn't.

Damn all Gryffindors to hell, putting other people's safety above their own and sacrificing themselves for the good of others. They were maddening, impossible creatures with more bravery than sense, they were the sorts of fools who'd try to hold of a rapist with broken porcelain while snarling insults.

Don't think about that, he told himself.

They had a few days, and none of the others had returned. Were they captives themselves in Greengrass Manor or were they camping in the woods, watching this lodge and waiting for an opportunity? Draco wanted to scream with rage that they hadn't thought to set up any kind of communication system other than a one-way panic signal. That they were novices at this was no excuse; they'd set themselves against people who weren't novices.

Of course, that panic signal hadn't gone off, which suggested there were five people who were cold and worried in the woods right now.

Draco and Blaise stood casual guard outside the door as Ginny washed her face. Lucius watched their protective stance with amusement but continued his silence. When Draco took his turn for ablutions he left the door open and fumbled with his lumos charm, flicking it on and off in the same way he'd used to do to annoy Theo at Hogwarts, and hoped that the man was there to see it.

The three arranged themselves in the bed they'd made with Draco closest to the room, between the other pair and his father, Ginny between the two, and Blaise holding his wife himself. She turned so her face was pressed against his shoulder and he murmured a stream of nearly inaudible reassurances into her ear.

Draco lay facing his father, one hand on his wand, and watched the man he'd idolized as a boy, the man he still loved despite everything. Lucius sat in the growing shadows and, when the trio of captives had been silent for a long while, their jailer finally sagged in his seat and rubbed one hand over his face as if he were exhausted.

Draco blinked a few time and narrowed his eyes as if squinting would bring his father's motives into focus but all he saw was the man turn to look out the window as he waited for the long night to pass.

. . . . . . . . . .

**A/N – And the end draws nigh…**

**As is always the case these days the best way to find me is as Colubrina on tumblr and Colubrina_ on twitter.**


	23. Chapter 23

Daphne tried to keep her jaw unclenched and her shoulders easy as she brought her husband, Theo, and Theo's dotty wife past the wards and into her family's home. She and Astoria had snuck out in and out as children, a pastime that her parents had indulgently smiled at. How else were little ones supposed to get a feel for family wards, after all? This is easy, Daphne told herself. You know how to do this.

Past the wards. Under the hedge. Through the maze. Across the lawn. Around the pond. Over the bridge. Up the stairs. Across the patio. Climb the trellis, open the window, and, voila, into what had once been her room.

The four of them stood in the pink testament to the bad taste she'd had at eleven and looked around.

"I like the unicorns," Luna said.

Theo picked up the edge of her bedspread. "Eyelet?" he asked. "_Pink_ eyelet? Oh, Daph. No wonder you never let me into your room."

"Shut up," she muttered and pulled the map she and Luna had drawn out of her pocket. "Do you think you can remember your way around well enough to find the storage room?"

"One wand for your loving husband," Theo said, tweaking the map out of her fingers. "Done. And I don't need this but I'll take it to make you feel less nervous."

"Nothing is going to make me feel less nervous," Daphne said.

"Let's just do this and get out of here, okay?" George asked.

"Back here in _ten minutes,_" Daphne said, looking at Theo, "Even if you didn't find a wand."

He chucked her under the chin and said, "Try not to worry your pretty little head, Daph. I've been sneaking things – mostly liquor – out of locked rooms in these Manors since I was twelve."

"Yeah, well, things are different now," she said, but a slight smile marred the worry on her face.

Theo took off one way, his quiet steps unremarkable on the thick carpet of the corridor, and the other three slipped into the room next to Daphne's, hoping Astoria would just be there and this would be easy.

She was there.

It wasn't easy.

Astoria was huddled in a tight ball on her bed. She didn't even look up when the door opened, just curled up around herself even more. "Tory?" Daphne said in a quiet voice, then with more insistence, "Tory."

The girl turned at that and looked at them. She shuddered and closed her eyes and whispered, "You got caught."

Daphne looked at George then said, "No, you goof. We came here to get you. France has much better weather this time of year. England is no good for a tan, you know. And Greg Goyle? Really? Tory, he doesn't bathe often enough. You can do better."

But the girl on the bed was shaking her head back and forth. "Can't go, can't go, can't go. Bad girls leave. Can't be a bad girl."

"Fuck," George said under his breath and Luna shoved Daphne forward toward her sister.

"Tory," Daphne said, modifying her voice so she didn't sound as worried as she felt. "Do I have to kick someone's arse? Has someone been bothering you?" She set a hand on her sister's forehead and the girl flinched away from the touch and began to cry.

Daphne looked back and George and he shook his head. "Those fucking bastards," he said. "She's a little girl."

"Fourteen," Astoria whispered. "Old enough to be married."

"Bullshite," George said from where he stood. "Barely old enough to go to a school dance. Maybe old enough to kiss a boy behind a tree and giggle about it with your friends."

"Old enough to be taught to heel," Luna said. "Young enough to unlearn it." She'd pulled a bag out of her pocket and was unfolding it and starting to pull things from Astoria's drawers. "I don't know what you like best so I'm just going to get some of everything," she said.

"Tory," Daphne said, "We can talk about those bastards once we're away. But you need to get up and come with us."

"Can't," Astoria said, huddling down onto her bed. "Hurts."

"What hurts," Daphne demanded. "How did they hurt you?"

"C…crucio."

"If you come with us they can't get you anymore," Daphne said.

"They'll find me, they'll do it again." Astoria had her eyes screwed shut against her would be rescuers.

"No," George said. "They won't find you."

"If you escape with us," Luna said, "they might find you, it's true. But if you stay here I can guarantee Goyle will hurt you again." She stopped putting clothes in the bag in her hand and turned to face the huddled form on the bed. "He likes hurting people, you see. He'll like hurting you."

"Luna," Daphne hissed, but that cool logic seemed to move Astoria more than the earlier reassurances had and she uncurled herself and flung her body at her sister, shaking and crying and holding on as if she'd never let go.

Theo stepped into the room behind them and watched this for a moment before he tossed the wand he'd found to George who caught it and let his hand close around the stick of wood with the hungry clutch of a man who's been denied sustenance for too long. "Why would they torture Astoria," he asked at last, his voice quiet. "What's to gain from hurting her?"

"Why do they need to have a reason," Daphne said. "They're just evil."

But Theo shook his head. "It's never that simple."

"I asked for time," Astoria whispered. "I said I would do it but please let me wait until I was 17. Until I was – "

"And so they tortured her," Daphne snapped, turning her head to glare at Theo. "Evil."

"But why not let her wait," he pressed. "If the goal is healthy pureblood babies marrying her off now isn't smart."

"They said," Astoria said, her voice still muffled against Daphne, "that he was ready for the sheep to come home. That now was the time and no one cared what the worm thought about it."

"That doesn't make any sense," Daphne protested right as Theo said, "Shite."

He and George looked at one another. "How hard was it to find this wand," George asked.

"Too easy," Theo said. "And it's like no one is home." He glanced at Luna. "We need to go. We need to go _now._"

Luna nodded and hefted her bag over one shoulder.

"Astoria, get your wand," Theo ordered. "Daphne, you take her back to the woods outside Draco's lodge."

"Not right to the door?" Daphne asked.

George shook his head and Daphne looked at him, then at Theo. "We've been set up," she said, fear creeping in her voice for the first time.

"Maybe not," Theo said, "but I think we shouldn't just pop in on Draco and them without looking carefully first."

. . . . . . . . . .

Astoria started crying, wracking sobs that she pushed into Daphne's chest, when Theo came back with the Death Eater count. The rest of them looked at one another until Luna said, "Who has the portkey?"

"Draco." Theo was regretting that now. It was brutally difficult to make the damn things but he should have made more, should have prepared for disaster a little more thoroughly.

"Are they all in there?" George asked, sheltering Daphne and Astoria with his body as well as he could.

"I don't know," Theo admitted. "I didn't want to get close enough to find out." He stared at the lodge. "Some of them are," he said. "And no one cares about surprise or the place wouldn't be crawling with these bastards."

"Pansy's dad is there," Daphne said. At Theo's narrow eyed stare she said, "I recognized the mask, even from where we are. He had it designed with roses because of her mother."

"Great," Theo muttered. "It's old home week here at the Malfoys. Next up, a quick fox hunt."

"As long as we're not the foxes," George muttered.

Theo stared at the lodge and tried to figure out what to do. "We might as well get comfortable," he said. "I think it's going to be a long night."

He took a stick and drew a rough circle in the dirt. "Daph," he said, "how're your warming charms."

She raised an eyebrow and, her arm still around her sister, began casting. "Well," she said when they were done. "With all of that a Death Eater should be able to walk right past us and have no idea we're here."

George looked around and used his new wand to transfigure some leaves to cups, filled tem with water, and warmed it. "Dinner, anyone?" he asked with a lip that quirked upward.

"I have soup in my bag," Luna said, and pulled out a carrot. Theo stared at her. "You can't make food from nothing," she said, "but you can multiply what you already have. So I packed a carrot just in case." She looked at her cup and it turned into a small cauldron. "Anyone have a knife?"

George laughed and handed her a blade of grass that became a knife as soon as she grabbed it and began slicing what appeared to be an endless carrot into the pot. Daphne settled Astoria down and went outside their circle, returning with a handful of leaves she began to tear up and drop into the pot.

"Wild leeks," she said. "A bit like onions." She wrapped an arm around Astoria again. "Do you remember the summer you would only eat greens you found growing wild?" she asked.

A tiny, sniffling sound answered her.

"It was so awful," she said to the other three. She was seven and she'd read some book about the trials of witches in the bleedin' dark ages and so she decided she would embrace their suffering and eat what they ate." She kissed Astoria's head.

"How long did that last?" George asked, setting what Luna had optimistically called soup to boil and making blades of grass into spoons, bowls and a ladle.

"Until my mother made cake," Daphne said.

"Your mother can cook?" Theo asked.

"Well," Daphne admitted, "The elves made the cake. But she put it on the table right next to Tory's plate of wild greens and said, 'It's too bad you can't have this but I understand why you won't eat it.'"

"What color was the cake?" George asked.

"Pink," Astoria said, looking up. "With my name spelled out in tiny sparklers."

"Subtle," Theo said.

"My mother doesn't do subtle," Daphne said.

"Wish we had that cake now," Theo said.

"Soup," Luna said, pointing at the pot and Theo wrapped his arms around her.

"You are so amazing," he said into her hair. "A carrot. Just… I wish I had been as prepared against any outcome as you were."

"Oh, she said, "I always bring a carrot with me."

. . . . . . . . . .

Theo returned to just starting at the lodge after it got dark. Luna joined him, her hand tucked into his.

"I don't know what to do," Theo whispered. George and Daphne had tried to charm the clothes Luna had taken for Astoria into blankets and were curled up around the girl, asleep thanks to warming charms and the exhaustion of fear. "We're just sitting here in the dark with no plan, no idea of what happened, no idea who's even in there."

"I know," Luna said.

"It's not… it scares me that they aren't being subtle," Theo said. "I mean, these people, they're smart. _He's _smart. He has plans and wheels within plans and more plans inside those wheels. If there are Death Eaters sitting outside like this we're meant to see them but _why_?"

"The sheep to come home," Luna mused. "Not captured, but bought home."

"Astoria was the bait," Theo agreed softly. "But which one of us did they want?"

"Not Daphne," Luna said, "or there would have been a bunch of people at her Manor."

"Not Daphne," Theo agreed. "Not George."

They looked at one another and then looked back at the lodge in silence. Luna tipped her head as the light in one window began to sputter and flicker on and off. Theo, however, started to smile. "Draco's in there," he said. "And he knows – or hopes – we're out here. That's the same damn thing he used to do with his lumos to make me nuts in school."

"If he has the portkey, why stay?" Luna said.

Theo looked at her, the question she asked become more and more rhetorical the longer he thought about it.

"They Snatched Granger," he said at last. "Because Draco would let the rest of us burn to get her out of there. If she were there. Which means she's not."

. . . . . . . . . .

**A/N – Almost done. Thank you for all your lovely thoughts and words. I appreciate them so much.**


	24. Chapter 24

Pansy wasn't sure what she had been expecting when she opened the door but it absolutely was not Theodore Nott.

Her father was off 'working', usually a euphemism for getting thoroughly pissed, but, based on the paperwork he'd left out on his desk, tonight it actually meant donning his mask and doing whatever menial task it was the Dark Lord would trust him with. Herding sheep, maybe, or grooming bunnies.

Pansy Parkinson did not have a high opinion of her father.

Her mother, as was usual these days, was drugged to the gills and passed out in her bed.

"I thought you'd skipped town," she said, letting her eyes travel up and down the lanky body of her former classmate. "Something about you being too good to join up with the Death Eaters."

"Ha ha." Daphne pushed her way to the front of the group clustered on her steps. "Let us in, Pans."

Pansy stepped aside and watched as former friends and their assorted unlucky spouses, all dirty, trailed one at a time into her foyer. She crossed her arms and leaned up against one of the pretentious columns her mother had had added in pre-war days and, ignoring the rest of the lot, said, "What do you need, Daph?"

"Hermione Granger," the woman said. "We think they've Snatched her."

Pansy's eyes flickered ever so slightly. "And why do I care about some Mudblood?"

"You bitch," Theo said as he stood getting dirt and leaves in her house. "I see you haven't changed."

Pansy awarded him one of her more scathing looks. "And I see you haven't either. Theodore."

"Draco loves her," Luna said, watching their hostess with untroubled eyes.

Pansy shrugged. "Draco Malfoy stopped being my problem a long time ago."

"You could leave with us," Daphne offered. "Escape this madness."

Pansy laughed. "At least you're offering some kind of trade, Daph. Has exile made the rest of you soft?"

"You want out?" Daphne asked.

"No." Pansy said the word baldly and watched the shock cross both Theo and Daphne's faces. "Why would I want to leave?"

"Let's see your arm," Theo said, the words twisted into the nastiest polite tone he could force out his mouth. "Been branded yet, Pansy?"

She slid the sleeve of the very expensive blouse up and casually displayed her unmarked forearm. "The power's not in the shock troops, Theodore. One would expect you to know that." She let the sleeve drop and then tapped her nose as if realizing something. "Of course, you've never been the brightest. The real power is in the politics and that, you sweet, sweet man, is where plain, little, horrid, awful me has always excelled."

"This was a mistake," George muttered and Pansy looked at him as if for the first time.

"Ron," she called out, her voice carrying. "I have a surprise for you."

"Will you help?" Daphne asked as they waited for Ron.

Pansy looked at her as if she'd lost her mind. "Of course I will," she said. "Slytherin girls stick together." She shrugged. "I don't care about the stupid bitch, of course, but if you want her yanked from wherever they've got her, assuming she's still in one piece and not bleeding out all over someone's rug or ravaged to the point of madness, I'm in."

Theo gaped at her.

"Close your mouth," Pansy advised. "Your dotty wife knew I'd do it."

Theo looked at Luna who had wandered over to another part of the entry hall and was looking at a paint of blotchy grasses and some polka-dot flowers. "This is fake," she said.

"What do you mean," Pansy asked.

"The painting."

Pansy laughed. "I know," she said. "Don't tell my mother, though. Fool woman thinks it's authentic. Paid a bloody fortune for it." She regarded the woman for a moment. "Perceptive little thing, aren't you?"

Luna shrugged and smiled at Ron as he loped into the room. The ginger man stopped when he saw the assembled group and then he and George were hugging one another and pulling back to examine each other's conditions.

"Is she treating you okay?" they asked in near unison.

George looked over at Daphne and the two shared a brief, intimate smile. "Yeah," he said. "She's great."

Ron stepped back and laced his fingers through his wife's. "I'm… Pansy's wonderful," he said. He looked over the group and saw Theo's expression of disgust. "You don't know her," he said.

"I lived in a dorm with her for seven years," Theo retorted. "I'd say I know her a lot better than you do."

Ron made a rude noise. "She's strong," he said, "and clever and she may be vicious but she protects what's hers."

"Meaning you," Theo said.

Ron looked like he wanted to explode but Pansy squeezed his hand. "I don't need their good opinion," she said. "I have yours." At that he leaned over kissed the side of her head and she leaned into him.

She threw a smug look at Theo. "Let's see, I have an adoring husband, power, and a place in the society in which I grew up and you have – "

"Freedom," Theo said.

Pansy shrugged. "No so much if you have to cower in exile. And not all of you. Granger apparently doesn't."

Ron startled. "Hermione's here?" he asked.

Pansy said, "No, she went and got herself Snatched. We're the rescue squad. We should wait to time it with the Revel, though. More people will be distracted."

Ron looked over at Luna, who was still examining the art on the wall, then back at Theo, Daphne, Astoria and his brother. "Distracted meaning drunk. Was there any doubt we'd help?" he asked as he held on to Pansy and studied the expressions arrayed before him.

"Obviously," Pansy said.

"Not from me," Luna said just as Ron said in disgust, "And you think you know her better."

. . . . . . . . . .

Hermione flinched when she heard the door to her prison open. No one had harassed her - or brought her any food - since a man in a Death Eater's mask had thrown her in here. There was water. There was a cot. There was a window. As a place to sit and marinate in your own fear while you waited to be tortured it could have been a lot worse. Hermione found those blessings a pretty scant lot to count.

She'd told herself that Draco would come and get her, assuming, of course, that he hadn't been captured as well. Assuming he wasn't a much more comfortable prisoner in the Manor being lectured by his father on getting too attached to his pets or something.

Assuming he was alive.

But she couldn't think about that. Couldn't dwell on that possibility. She'd hold on to trusting that this man who loved her would be here, would find her, would get her out.

Eventually. He'd get her out eventually.

She hoped he managed it before things got bad and when she heard the door open she had the immediate, paralyzing certainly that the bad times were about to begin. When Tom Riddle, the now handsome Minister of Magic, walked into her line of sight, followed by two masked flunkies, she was even more sure of it.

He wordlessly directed his minions to deposit the large, padded chair they were carrying outside the bars of her cell and settled down into the seat, waving them away. Hermione shrank back against the far wall as this charming version of Lord Voldemort stretched out his legs before him. He idly regarded his feet, clad in what appeared to be expensive, leather shoes, steepled his fingers, and then raised his eyes to study her.

"What?" she snapped out after a bit.

"I'm not sure we've even been properly introduced, Mrs. Malfoy," Tom Riddle said. "I hope you don't mind if I'm familiar enough to converse with you anyway."

"Converse?" she asked.

"You were expecting something else?" He raised his brows in what she assumed was a mocking query. "A little crucio, perhaps? I could carve words into your arms? Throw you to my men for a Revel?" He shook his head. "You're such a limited thinker, my dear. I admit I'd hoped for more nuance from the woman who broke my Dark Mark."

"Draco helped," she said, throwing the words at the man. "And he's free of you. You don't own him anymore."

Riddle shrugged. "I think that, rather like his parent's marriage, the real force in this generation of Malfoys is the wife. Owning little Draco is uninteresting."

Hermione swallowed hard at what she suspected was coming.

"I'm much more interested in owning you."

"Just a filthy Mudblood?" Hermione spat out, trying not to shake. "Forgive me if I don't believe you."

Riddle smiled warmly at her, an engaging, enchanting smile. "But, my dear," he said softly, "Narcissa has gone to such trouble to provide you with false papers proving that you're a half-blood."

Hermione paled and Riddle laughed, the sound just as warm as his smile.

"You thought I didn't know about that?" he asked. "Don't be silly. It's sweet, really, how much the boy adores you. A childhood crush grown into true love. And you're well and truly married so I can only assume you've grown to reciprocate his feelings." He sighed. "The Weasley boy will be disappointed but the former Miss Parkinson will be relieved." He stopped talking to study her for a moment before he continued, "I'd suggest cultivating her. She'd be a good ally. She's not as bright as you are, of course, but she's quite good at politics."

"So you know I'm a Mudblood," Hermione choked out. "Big surprise."

"No," he corrected her, "You're a half-blood. It suits me to have you be such. Illustrates the basic principle that any truly powerful magic user has to be from wizarding stock. Hermione Granger, Mudblood, is a thorn in the side of the ideology I use to control my followers; Hermione Malfoy, half-blood and powerful witch, well, she's a prize."

"F-fuck you," Hermione stammered out.

"Pish," Tom Riddle said. "I'm not going to rape a woman married to a loyal follower."

"Not that loyal," Hermione said.

Riddle shrugged. "He could be. He would be if you told him you wanted to return to your own country."

"Come back here to wear an 'M' on my clothing and play a starring role as a victim in your dystopia? I don't think so."

"Oh," Riddle said, that smile still on his face, "did I forget to mention that? You'd be one of our elite, Hermione. You and Draco both. Inner circle of power, wealth, safety. Return from exile and publicly support me and I'll guarantee your safety."

She made a rude snort and he continued, still smiling though the smile was now colder and more predatory. "Oh, I'll make the unbreakable vow if you like."

"Get thee behind me," she muttered then said, summoning courage from somewhere deep in her soul, "Come and live in your gilded prison? No."

Riddle leaned back as though they had entered some new stage of negotiations. That very thought chilled Hermione; he had offered her power and safety, offered to guarantee it. If that was the carrot what was the stick?

Riddle, however, offered up only more carrots. "Not even if I made dear Lucius apologize on his knees for that little stunt he pulled in Diagon Alley? Don't tell me having him have to acknowledge you as a social equal - no, superior - isn't tempting. Your little Draco can be the paterfamilias of the Malfoys, he can control the holdings, make the decisions. Lucius is already worried about his beloved Narcissa, already starting to crack. It's time to ease him to the side and let the next generation take over."

"It's still a prison," Hermione snapped. However, she'd been running their conversation through her head. "You said you could tell I reciprocated his feelings. How?"

Riddle cocked his head to the side and said, "Your vow, my dear. It's been sealed."

"He could have just... done whatever Greg Goyle did."

Riddle laughed, an actual, genuine laugh and Hermione was startled enough to take a step toward him. "Do you really know so little about magic?" he asked. "And you still managed to break the Mark. I'm even more impressed."

Hermione had the horrible feeling she'd somehow admitted something dangerous, made herself more desirable.

"It's an old vow, that binding marriage vow," Riddle said. "It requires a bit more than forced consummation to lock it into place. You have to actually want one another. You have to actually, dare I say it, love one another." He laughed again. "You really didn't know? I so look forward to the delights you two come up with when I loose you on a decent library with instructions to just research and bring me what you discover. Once you have an actual education you'll be truly impressive."

"It'd still be prison," Hermione said.

"It will be prison no matter where you are," Tom Riddle said. "Live in comfort with power and wealth in your home country or live behind the walls of your little house in Villefranche, afraid to go out for fear of being Snatched. They're both prisons, my dear."

"I hate you," Hermione said, shaking at how he knew where they'd taken refuge. How, she wondered, frantic as a bird in a net, did he know that.

Tom Riddle shrugged. "But you love Draco. You have the power to guarantee his safety, to guarantee his mother's safety, to guarantee your children stay in your life. I won't even make him retake the Mark. You've already taken a snake to your bosom, my sweet girl. Don't be so wary of becoming, oh, who's the Muggle queen?"

"Cleopatra," Hermione said with a whisper, "and you'll never get your hands on any child of mine. Draco and I will be in France, safely away from you, and our children will never be part of your regime."

Riddle shook his head. "Do you really believe that?" he asked. "You and your little would-be rebels are really just doing exactly what I want. I'm immortal, Hermione. Funny how that gives one a rather unique perspective on strategy. I can wait a generation to get all your lovely babies into my clutches." He smiled again. "And, of course, I don't want the rest of your little crew; they can stay unmolested, as it were, in France. I just want you and your devoted partner back. You can bring your friends with you or leave them under your protection in France. I leave those trivial details up to you."

"Never," she said again, shaking at the subtly revealed stick.

He stood up and tossed her a coin. It landed at her feet and she refused to look at it as he said, "Well, your former swain, the noble Mr. Weasley, should be here in a few hours to rescue you, assuming all has gone as planned and Mr. Parkinson left his paperwork out for his daughter to filch, as she is prone to do, and the former Miss Greengrass turned to her old school chum for help once she saw the Death Eaters so conveniently arrayed outside the Malfoy lodge, as I expect she has. You can, as the saying goes, set a watch by how those Slytherin girls do stick together. I've cleared the guards away to make your escape from here less fraught and I would imagine you'll meet up with Draco shortly after that. Bear in mind what I said about dear little Pansy, Mrs. Malfoy. And if you ever change your mind, decide you want to live a life without fear as a valued member of my inner circle you can use that coin to contact me. My full offer stands whenever you choose to take it."

After he left she squatted down and picked up the coin. Heat flared in it when she ran her fingers along the ridged outer edge and she could almost hear the man laugh. Hating herself, she dropped it into her pocket. Just in case, she thought. Just until we're all safely back in our house with Astoria.

Just until then.

. . . . . . . . . .

_**A/N – Thoughts? As always, the best way to reach me for questions is tumblr where I'm Colubrina and I thrill to your reviews.**_


	25. Chapter 25

Hermione tried not to flinch when the fully masked Death Eater entered her cell but all the man – she assumed – did was leave a tray of food on a table for her. She waited until he'd left again before she approached the tray and picked up the neatly folded note.

_Mustn't have my prize researcher get damaged due to malnutrition_, it read. _You'll want your strength for the rescue. I've sent all the guards away so no one will get too enthusiastic but you might expect a little trouble at the Lodge. I'm sure you can handle it. Nothing's poisoned._

She dropped the note as if it were the thing that were poisoned and lifted the lid that had been placed over the plate.

It was her favorite meal.

Of course it was.

She wanted to pick it up and hurl it at the wall in an act of defiance but pragmatism won out and she took the fork and began grimly eating the food. She was hungry, after all, and he was right that she'd fare better on this rescue if she had eaten.

She wished she could say the food tasted like sawdust in her mouth but it was excellent.

. . . . . . . . . . .

The door to the hall outside her prison opened up again about an hour after she'd finished eating. She expected it to be just another robed flunkey come to take her meal away so didn't look up until she heard a familiar and beloved voice say, "Hermione?"

At that she jumped from her seat on her cot and ran to the bars. "Ron," she said, happiness and worry warring for her attention. "How did you – "

"Place was totally empty," Pansy Parkinson - well, Weasley now – said from behind her one time near-boyfriend. "I think they're all off at Nott Manor having a Revel. My father got an invitation but couldn't attend what with having to go guard your lover boy because you all had to come back. Worked out well for you, though, to have the whole lot of them off enjoying some Muggle."

"You wanted us to leave Astoria?" Hermione asked, her tone dry as Ron pushed a key into the lock of her cell and swung the door open. She opted to ignore that the diversion that allowed them to get her away easily involved another woman's suffering; she had a feeling that wasn't merely convenient.

Damn Tom Riddle.

"Are you okay?" Ron asked as he pulled her into a tight hug. "I was so worried."

"I'm fine," she said, stepping back from him and looking him up and down and then, hating herself but doing it anyway, she added, "Marriage must suit you."

"You too," he said as a flush crept up his cheeks.

"Aren't you carrying a torch, Granger?" Pansy Parkinson drawled. "I thought that was kind of your thing."

Hermione looked at Pansy for a long moment and considered what Riddle had told her. As much as she hated to follow the man's advice she found herself doing it anyway. "I'm happily married and you're happily married," she said. "Maybe we don't need to be adversarial about things like this."

Pansy glanced around the reasonably comfortable cell and ran her eyes up and down the exposed skin on Hermione's arms and neck, presumably cataloguing the lack of bruising. Her eyes flickered over to the tray that was still sitting on the small table and her lips curled up in a small smile. "Allies then?" she asked.

Hermione nodded, a short, curt nod that clearly made Ron nervous. "What are you two talking about?" he asked.

"Just making contingency plans," Pansy said.

"How did you know where I was?" Hermione asked as they began to make their way down the hall and up the stairs to get out of the basement where she had been detained.

"My father," Pansy said. Ron held the door at the top of the stairs open for them and both Pansy and Hermione walked through it. As expected, the entire manor had been abandoned. "He has a habit of leaving his instructions out on his desk and I have a habit of reading them."

"Convenient," Hermione said.

Pansy looked at the other woman, slow respect growing in her eyes. "Yes," she said, "Wasn't it?"

When they reached the shelter of a copse of trees outside the manor, they reunited with Daphne, Theo, and the shaking Astoria. "You got her out," Hermione said taking in the sight of the younger girl.

"She was a trap," Theo said. "Bait."

"Yes, I've figured that out," Hermione said. "But I've been sprung and I think we can take her home now. I think – no, I know – that I want to get out of here."

"Draco still has the portkey," Theo said. "He's under guard at the family hunting lodge."

Hermione turned and gave Ron one last quick hug. "Thank you for coming to get me," she said.

"I'll miss you," he said giving her a hard squeeze before releasing her and returning to stand next to his wife. "I'm glad you're safe, but, well, I selfishly wish you were still here."

Pansy made a brief, amused noise. Hermione shot her an angry glance and Pansy just shrugged, smirk barely hidden. "What kind of food do you like, Hermione?" she asked. "Inquiring minds want to know."

"I think you two should go back to the Parkinson estate before anyone notices you were gone," Theo said, giving Pansy a puzzled glance "We'll apparate over to the Malfoy Lodge, collect everyone, and go home."

Ron nodded and he and Pansy winked out of existence.

"I think you might have over simplified the process of getting out," Daphne said.

"Let's just hope that none of the Death Eater guards get over enthusiastic," Hermione said. "This part was easy. Shall we get on with the next stage?"

. . . . . . . . . . .

They apparated back to the wooded area outside the Malfoy hunting lodge. Everything was as they had left it with bored Death Eaters desultorily guarding the building.

"Any suggestions?" Theo asked. Hermione shook her head.

"Can't we just apparate into the building?" Daphne asked. "Grab Draco and the others and go?"

"We don't know it well enough," George said. "Too likely to bungle it and end up appearing inside a table."

Theo nodded grimly. "I think we might have to fight our way in," he said.

"I don't have a wand," Hermione said. She'd already had to side-along apparate so it wasn't like they didn't know this but facing a fire fight without a wand made her very nervous.

"How many of them are there?" George asked. "Can we take them out individually before we even appear?"

Luna said, her tone serene as always, "There are six of them outside."

"And six of us, one underage and one wandless," Theo said, "and none of us soldiers."

"And who knows how many inside," George said, "or whether Draco and them have their wands."

"They do," Theo said.

"How do you know," Daphne asked sharply.

Theo shrugged. "Draco signaled me with that annoying thing he used to do with lumos charms and he's not exactly good at wandless magic. Not good enough to do that."

"So that's something," Daphne said.

"Why would they leave them with their wands?" Astoria whispered.

Hermione took a deep breath. "Let's just be grateful for our good fortune," she said. "It'll make getting out of here easier."

Theo studied the Death Eaters. "Hermione," he said at last, "you stay with Astoria. Tory, give her your wand just in case. She's a better fighter than you are, even with a strange wand."

Astoria nodded and though handing over her wand made her, if at all possible, paler than she had been, she did it.

"Hermione, you guard her," Theo said. "The rest of us… Luna, what's your best disabling spell?"

"Body bind," she said.

"George?"

"I've got a few," the man said.

"Daphne?"

"Don't worry about me," she said. "I'll take down my share."

Theo nodded. "We'll split up," he decided at last, "Come at them from all side at once. I'll go around to the other side of the building. Luna, you come with me, we'll take everyone out over there."

"Leaving the ones on this side for me and Daphne?" George asked.

"You got it," Theo said.

"This is a – "

"It's all we've got," Theo cut Hermione off. "I hope that once the people inside see what's happening they incapacitate everyone inside and meet us at the door."

"Hope," she said.

"It's got feathers," Luna said and everyone turned to stare at her. "Shall we fly away?" she asked.

"Yes," Daphne said. "I think I've had enough of Britain."

Hermione kept her body in front of Astoria as Theo and Luna circled through the woods. When they heard a shout from the other side of the lodge they took that as a signal that Theo and Luna had begun their assault and George and Daphne began throwing curses at the Death Eaters in front of them. They each took out one almost immediately but the third man on their side of the building, warned, was far more effective as a fighter and he launched first spells designed to incapacitate and then far more deadly ones at them.

"_Expelliarmus_," Hermione hissed, pointing Astoria's wand at the man. His wand fought to leave his hand at her command and while he tightened his grip on it George and Daphne sent curses at him simultaneously. He clutched at his chest and fell to the ground.

"What was that?" Daphne cried out as she ran toward George even as he pointed at the door of the lodge. "I just did a body bind!"

"Heartburn," George said. "He probably thinks he's having a heart attack though."

Daphne choked out a laugh.

"I could use some help over here," they heard Theo scream and they rounded the building to see Luna holding her arm as two Death Eaters bore down on Theo. The door to the lodge opened and Draco came out, his wand held out and spells shooting from it at the backs of the Death Eaters. Blaise and Ginny came behind him, their own wands out as they kept their back to one another and turned in slow circles looking for Death Eaters.

"I think we've got them all," Theo said as Draco took down the last standing robed figure. "Draco, do you have the portkey?"

"I do," he said. He reached into a pocket and pulled it out and they gathered near him, breathing heavily. "Is everyone okay?" he asked, his eyes on Hermione.

She nodded. "I'm unhurt," she said.

"Luna needs attention," Theo said, furious. "Trigger the damn thing so we can go."

"It's triggered. It's just got a 1-minute delay," Draco said. "Hands on it, everyone."

"1-minute delay?" Theo asked. He sounded incredulous and furious and terrified all at once. "Who thought that was a good idea?"

"You did," Draco pointed out. "It gives time for everyone to get their hands on it so no one gets left behind."

"I'm an idiot," Theo said.

"I'm not arguing," Draco said.

"We're all fools," Blaise said, one hand on the portkey and another still holding his wand out. "This was a fool's errand."

"She's my _sister_," Daphne said. "He would have killed her."

"30-seconds," Hermione said.

They stood in silence, all counting silently in their heads, hands on the portkey. They heard the popping of more Death Eaters apparating in at 10 seconds.

"Fuck," Blaise said with desperation. He began wildly shooting curses at the approaching men keeping one hand on the portkey.

"Eight," said Hermione.

"No one take their hand off that fucking portkey!" Draco snapped.

"Seven."

Theo and Ginny were also on the side of Death Eaters and they shot curse after curse but as one man fell another apparated in. Astoria began to sob hysterically.

"Four," Hermione said.

The low laughter of the robed figures was audible even over the sound of curses going off and Astoria's sobbing.

"Three."

"Do _not_ take your hands off that portkey no matter what," Draco said again as Ginny screamed as a curse hit her. "If you do, we are _not_ coming back for you."

"Two."

The Death Eaters kept coming.

. . . . . . . . . .

**A/N - *waves cheerfully* One more chapter after this one.**


	26. Chapter 26

When they fell into their garden everyone whirled, back to one another and wands out, waiting for the Death Eaters to follow them. When only silence and the sound of a single, lonely bird calling to a mate that wasn't there met their defensive huddle they slowly straightened and turned, checking one another for injuries.

Theo ran his hands over Luna's arms and shoulders, his jaw clenching even more tightly when he found the cut where a curse had brushed against her. She sagged against him, happy now to let him take care of her again, and he led her up the stairs toward the house and, presumably, their suite. He stopped at the patio and said, without turning around to look at the others, "That had better have been a one time thing. We better not be planning to go back and fetch every last wounded soul in Britain."

No one responded and he walked Luna through the wide doors and away from the group.

Ginny had collapsed against Blaise and, now that it was clear they had gotten away, had begun to sob. He scooped her up and, without saying anything to the others, carried her into the house. "I've got you," he murmured as he climbed the stairs. "It's okay. We're safe. He didn't follow us. He doesn't know where we are. I'll take care of you."

Hermione blanched at that, a sudden loss of colour that Draco saw and tensed at. "Later," she said and he nodded.

"Astoria," Draco turned to the girl who was still huddled against her older sister. "It's okay, sweetheart. We got away. They aren't here."

She just pressed her face more firmly into her sister's chest.

Draco looked up at George and the two men exchanged worried glances. "The bedroom downstairs is open," Draco said at last, when it became clear that Daphne and George were waiting for someone to tell them what to do. "I'm sure it's made up. Elves and all." He squatted down by Astoria's feet, putting himself below her in an attempt to lessen her fears. "It's where I recovered when we broke my connection to that place, honey. It's a good place to recover."

Astoria didn't respond but Daphne nodded and began leading her sister up the stairs.

"What did they do to her?" Draco hissed at George as he stood back up. "She was fine a few months ago. She was an annoying little pest of a thing but fine."

George sighed. "Do you really want me to speculate?" he asked.

The question was clearly meant to be rhetorical but Hermione, her voice flat, said, "Yes. You saw more of what life was like under that bastard than we did. We kept to Theo's family manor until we skipped town so, other than that one day we came and saw you in Diagon Alley, I have no direct experience of what life in Britain is like right now."

George ran a hand over his face and sank down into a nearby metal chair.

When he didn't say anything, Hermione pulled another chair up and sat down opposite him. "George," she said, "I need to know this."

Draco moved to stand behind her and settled a single hand on her shoulder as George began to talk.

"I assume they punished her for her sister's escape. Part of it was the marriage to Goyle; that would let everyone know that if you defect the people you leave behind will suffer. Part of it would be to make sure she was too beaten down to do the same thing. Magic can… you can hurt people really badly with magic and not leave a mark on them. You can make a little girl watch a Muggle tortured to death in front of her, tell her this is what will happen to her if she defies her parents, defies her husband." He uncovered his face and looked at Hermione. "They took her wand, made her scared to leave. Do the details of the way she was abused matter that much?"

"I guess not," Hermione said. "It's just..." She began to cry then and Draco bent over her and wrapped his arms around her, an awkward embrace that she turned into.

George stood and brushed some of the soot from the curses he'd narrowly dodged from his trousers and said, "I'll go check on Daphne and Astoria."

Draco nodded at him. "Find out what she needs," he said. "Find out if she needs healing for curses or if they withheld food to keep her compliant or what."

"Will do," George said and took off, his tread heavy, toward the stone stairs that wound up to the patio.

"We need to talk," Hermione said and Draco tightened his arms around her.

"So talk," he said.

"In private," she said, very softly. "Behind silencing charms."

"That bad?" he asked. When she didn't respond he stepped back and held a hand out to her. She took it and let him help her to stand, let him lead her up the stairs. The longer she didn't speak the more worried Draco became.

Whatever this was, it was clearly very bad indeed.

**. . . . . . . . . .**

Before she'd talk, however, Hermione insisted on a shower. Draco stood under the stream of hot water with her and watched her scrub at her skin until it was red. "Hermione," he said at last, putting a hand over hers, "You're as clean as you're going to get."

She sighed and leaned against him, so obviously distressed that even the feel of his naked wife didn't urge Draco toward anything other than trying to find out what was wrong. What had happened to her after she'd been captured? He could tell she didn't have a scratch on her, other than the one's she'd just given herself with the nearly vicious swipes she'd made at her skin with a loofah, and while George was right and you could hurt people really badly with magic without leaving a mark on them they were generally far more shaken afterward than even his distressed witch seemed. They were like Astoria.

Hermione turned off the water and reached for a towel. Draco tugged it from her hands and wrapped it around her like a blanket and held her tightly against him as she shook and began to cry.

Maybe, he thought with horror, she had been subjected to the torture curse after all.

"You can tell me," he said, "Whatever it is. What happened to you? Did they hurt you? I'll go back and kill them myself if they hurt a single hair on your head."

She almost laughed at that. "No," she said, sniffling against him, "I just sat in a cell and felt scared and hungry and then the Minister himself came and chatted me up. No one hurt me."

"The Minister came?" Draco could feel himself get chilled even in their steam filled bathroom. "What did he have to say?"

But Hermione shook her head and pulled away from him and walked out of the room. Worried and dreading what she'd say he followed her; he pulled on comfortable pajamas even as she did the same and, only when they were tucked under the covers of their bed and she'd shooed away an over-attentive elf who brought restorative tea and a bowl of fruit and some cheese and crackers with a strained, if polite, request that the creature leave the snack on the little table, did she begin to talk.

"We made a mistake," she said. "When we broke your Mark. We knew he'd know but… Draco, he knows it was _us_."

He flinched. That made sense, of course. Who else would have cared enough to even try to do it?

"It made him interested in us," she continued. "He wants us, wants us researching spells for him."

"No!" The word exploded out of Draco's mouth before he even had a chance to think about it. "Never. Not ever. Hermione, no."

"That's what I said," Hermione soothed him and he settled back down. "Then he promised me safety for me and mine. You. Your family. Everyone here."

"He's a fucking liar," Draco said. "He lies for _fun_. You didn't believe him, did you?"

She shook her head. "No, not until he offered to make the Unbreakable Vow."

"Shite," Draco breathed out.

They sat in silence for a while and Draco just listened to Hermione breathe. At last she said, "Would you have been a soldier in his army to keep me safe?"

Draco swallowed and then said, his voice as steady as he could make it, "Yes."

"Even if it meant you had to do despicable things?"

"Yes," he said again, feeling the tears starting to gather behind his eyes. He'd been so sure they'd gotten out. So sure they were safe. He said, desperate to hold off the truth as long as he could, "I would have done whatever it took. But none of those people are in danger anymore, Hermione. We're here. He can't find us, he doesn't know where we are. And there's no reason to go after my parents. They're loyal members of his inner circle of fanatics."

"He knew the name of this town," she said. "Dropped it casually into conversation. And he knows your mother filed those papers for me. Said it _suited him_ for me to be a half-blood so not to worry."

"Shite," Draco said again as the walls began to close in.

"He knew Ron was coming to get me. He… he let me go, Draco. He let all of us go with just enough of a chase to make it feel real and…there's no way we should have had that many Death Eaters coming at us and gotten away and I don't think he would have done that if he didn't plan to make us come back. If it wasn't more _fun_ to make us return to him of our own volition."

At that Draco began to really cry, hating himself for not being able to be some kind of pillar but unable to bear it any more. They were trapped. That bastard had trapped them and he was just biding his time until it suited him to make them return. "Just us," he whispered at last. "None of the others?"

"We're the ones who broke the Mark," she said, leaning her head against him. "We get to be elite members of society. No Muggle-born stigma. You'd be Malfoy paterfamilias. He told me he'd make your father apologize on his knees for…"

"Quite," Draco said, his voice clipped even through his tears. "That I wouldn't mind seeing. I'm not sure I can forgive him for making me… that was an awful day."

"Yeah," Hermione said, her hand going to her cheek where Draco had hit her. That day had been awful indeed.

"I don't want to take the Mark again," he whispered after another long span of silence. He felt so hideously selfish even saying that, even thinking it. They could keep everyone who mattered safe, he could keep Hermione safe, and all he had to do was go back and be wealthy and powerful and he shouldn't care. What did it matter, really, if he had a working Mark on his arm or not? Once he was working for the Dark Lord did it matter if he was magically bound to the man or not? The man had a far more practical leash tied around his throat and no incentive not to yank on it whenever it pleased him.

"You won't," Hermione said. "He… he said you wouldn't have to."

"I'm so sorry," Draco choked out. "I thought I'd gotten you away. I didn't think… if I'd known that breaking the Mark would have… I would have sent you away with Theo and Blaise and just gone back to him and known you were free. This is my fault, that he's at all interested in you is my fault. I'm so, so sorry, Hermione."

"It's not your fault," she said, angry. "It's his. Don't you blame yourself. Not ever. If it weren't for you I'd be dead or wearing some M on my clothes and begging in the street."

"I'm still sorry," Draco said, burying his face in her hair. "Maybe we won't have to go back."

"Maybe," she said, though her voice suggested she didn't think that escape was likely. "We won't unless we have to."

**. . . . . . . . . .**

"Safe," Theo said with what sounded like a bit of forced cheer as he handed the platter of scones over to Astoria. "No one can find you here, Tory."

The younger girl's hand shook as she took the plate from him. "Thanks, Theo," she said, her voice a whisper. She hadn't come out of her room much since they'd gotten away, Death Eaters howling with rage as they portkeyed out of reach. It was clear she thought this was just a respite, that at any moment there would be a knock on the door and she'd be dragged back to be handed over to Greg Goyle. Daphne had spent the past few days sitting at her sister's side, saying over and over again that she was safe, that no one would let anyone get her. "I promise you," she said over and over again.

Hermione had gone in just once. Astoria had thanked her in that quiet voice and Hermione had felt herself shake just looking at this girl, all of fourteen, who'd been about to be handed over to the vicious man who'd killed his first wife. "No one will get you," she'd said, echoing Daphne's words. "I promise you, Astoria, we'll keep you safe. No matter what it takes."

Now she watched that girl and watched Theo read the paper. She'd told him to stop hiding the political news from her. "I think if I can chat up the Dark Lord while in prison I can handle news of the Wizengamot," she'd said. He'd sighed but agreed. He even engaged her in discussions, albeit guarded ones, about things he read.

Today wasn't a good news day. She could tell by his expression. "The government of France has entered into negotiations with the new British government," he said, his tone carefully neutral. "Apparently Riddle approached them and made overtures. Something about historical friendship between nations and self-determination and no plans to spread the Death Eater movement to France."

"And they believed that?" Draco asked, scorn dripping from his mouth. "Idiots."

"War has no winners," Theo said, "only losers."

"That's great in theory," Draco said. "But I'm pretty sure the British Minister has no intention of being anything other than the winner in any so-called 'agreement'." He slammed his teacup down so hard the table rattled and Astoria looked up from where she was hunched in her chair, fear so obvious in her eyes that Draco modified his tone. "I don't see non-aggression pacts going anywhere good," he finished, somewhat lamely.

"They're agreeing on an extradition treaty," Theo said, trying not to worry Astoria with his tone. Blaise turned his head very slowly toward Theo.

"An extradition treaty?" he asked. "As in…?"

Theo looked from Blaise to Astoria and the man shut his mouth.

"It won't happen," Hermione said. "Never, ever. We are fine. We are safe. No one will get any of you. Just… relax and eat."

She ran her hand over her stomach and counted again. 7 weeks. 33 to go. Another link in the chain around her neck. And an extradition treaty in the works.

Hermione pulled her hand away from her body and held it out and, a guarded look in his eyes, Theo passed the paper over. The article on wizarding France's plans to appease the British, however, wasn't what caught her eye.

No.

There was something much, much worse. There was a photo of Narcissa Malfoy standing with the Minister of Magic; below the photo was a brief article that Hermione skimmed. Narcissa had been brought in for questioning. There was concern she wasn't wholly loyal to the state but the Minister was sure it was all a mistake; he was sure her family would vouch for her, whatever it took. Riddle had one hand on her arm and Narcissa looked afraid, so afraid. With his other hand the man was tossing a coin into the air, over and over again. He looked out from the photo and smiled at Hermione. She closed her eyes and reached her hand down into her pocket and, almost without meaning to, shut her fingers around the matching coin. When she opened her eyes Draco was staring at her.

She silently passed the paper over and watched the colour drain from his face. He looked at her, a question in his eyes. She nodded very slightly and he swallowed and closed his own eyes for a moment before nodding back in confirmation.

Whatever it takes, Hermione thought to herself as Draco took her hand in his and twined his fingers around hers, squeezing gently. Whatever it takes.

**~ finis ~**


	27. Epilogue

**~ epilogue ~**

Draco brushed a careful finger over the baby's forehead, right at the edge of the hat the midwife-Healer had slipped over his head. "He's perfect," the man whispered. No matter how much he thought he had prepared for this moment through nine long months of stress and fear and Hermione's sudden obsession with caramels nothing could have gotten him ready for the way his heart sat in his throat at the sight of the newborn baby wrapped in a blanket and asleep in Hermione's arms.

She looked up at him. Her hair was lank and greasy, her face shone with sweat, and she looked beyond exhausted. "You're happy?" she asked.

"Thrilled, my love," Draco said.

The door pushed open and the man walked in, his surely manicured hands thrust down into the pockets of his expensive trousers. He smiled at the suddenly tense couple as he approached the baby and leaned over, laying a single finger on the boy's tiny nose "Little Scorpius," he said with what passed for warm fondness in his voice. "Here at last."

"It's generally how pregnancy ends," Hermione said. An observant nurse might have seen the way she pulled ever so slightly away from her visitor but the couple had been left alone to bond with their new child.

"I think," the man said, "You should name me godfather. It will be a good way to cement our close relationship, don't you agree?"

"He's included in the Vow," Hermione said. There was no room for disagreement in her voice and the man turned his engaging smile on her.

"Have I implied otherwise?" he asked. "Godfather, yes?"

"Of course," Draco said, the words a torment in his mouth. "We would be honored."

.


End file.
